In 1960, police opened fire on a demonstration against passbooks, killing 69 people in what became known as the
Sharpeville Massacre.
We told how South African police shot and killed 56 people protesting against apartheid in
Sharpeville. The final death toll was 69.
Exactly 59 years ago today the
Sharpeville massacre took place, compelling me to stand up for human rights in my country, following in the footsteps of Chief Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela.
1960: The
Sharpeville massacre took place in the Transvaal, South Africa, when police fired on a demonstration against Pass Laws, killing 69 people.
Alcatraz Island and prison, San Francisco Bay 1985: Riot police shot dead 17 black people at South Africa's Langa township on the 25th anniversary of the
Sharpeville massacre.
The first candidate chosen was
Sharpeville Breweries, a craft brewer from the Vaal Triangle, from
Sharpeville Township.
The horror of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa was challenged with a sustained campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiated in 1958 and given new urgency in 1960 after the
Sharpeville Massacre and the mid-70s after the Soweto uprising.
After
Sharpeville in 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, ANC leader Albert Luthuli, appealed to the international community to totally isolate the South African regime with economic and other sanctions.
Mandela's life is put into its social context: necessarily descriptions of events have been sanitised for young readers--the illustrations highlight the social injustices of the apartheid system in a way that photographs could not do; passing mention is made of the violent activities of some members of the African National Congress in the later struggles for justice, but no details of the horrors given; the
Sharpeville Massacre is also mentioned, concentrating on the passbook system that was used as an excuse for the atrocity.
Even after the global attitude began to change following instances such as the
Sharpeville massacre of 1960, more than two decades later the Thatcher and Reagan administrations were still holding out against sanctions.
On 21 March 1960,69 nonviolent protesters were massacred by the police at
Sharpeville, a black township outside Johannesburg.