![]() Mashinini became a historic icon for his contribution to student politics that led to the protests of 16 June 1976. Tsietsi Mashinini was born on 27 January 1957 in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. Ndlovu's death did not become as iconic as Hector's because no photographer was present to record it and his name was not immediately known. This was done in the honour of Hector and those who died around the country in the 1976 uprising.Īlthough the media reports named Hector as the first child to die on 16 June 1976, Hastings Ndlovu was in fact the first child to be shot according to police records. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum was later opened in Soweto near the place where he was shot in Orlando West, on 16 June 2002. Pieterson was rushed to a nearby clinic where he was pronounced dead. He was killed by a shot fired directly at him, contrary to police claims that he was killed by a bullet "ricocheting off the ground". ![]() Hector was one of the first casualties of the 1976 uprising. We also remember Tsietsi Mashinini, who lead the students in protest. Among the first children killed was 15-year-old Hastings Ndlovu, and 12-year-old Hector Pieterson. The events of the day highlight a few individuals who took part in the protest. And so the 1976 student uprising, as it was called, was born. The protest turned into an uprising by students against the apartheid government, but hundreds of students were killed by police. The rally was a peaceful protest intended to urge the government not to make Afrikaans compulsory in schools.īut when armed police were called in to disperse the crowds with dogs, teargas and bullets, they opened fire on the students. The use of African languages was prohibited in these schools and the Constitution supported Afrikaans and English to be made the official languages of the country. While black students were already getting conscientised by student organisations and the Black Consciousness Movement when the Bantu Education Act (1953) was instituted, they mobilised for a protest against an official order that made Afrikaans - along side English only - as the medium of instruction compulsory in black township schools throughout the country. On the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands of black students from Soweto in the then Transvaal, now Gauteng, went on a protest rally from their schools to Orlando Stadium. On the day, over 500 young people, including school students, were killed. Youth Day, as it is popularly known, is a day in which South Africans honour the youth that was ambushed by the apartheid regime police in Soweto on 16 June 1976. We remember the youth of 1976 and what transpired on the day.
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