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- The Last Straw
- Abolish Apartheid
- No Afrikaans
- Tsietsi Mashinini / Police Come
- Black Power!!!
- Police Violence
- In 1975, Black South African students were told they had to begin learning their major subjects, Math and Social Studies in Afrikaans. This would make their already difficult , and poor education even more difficult under the apartheid regime, so teachers, students and more decided to take to the streets and strike against these new rules as this was their last straw. On April 30th 1976, students at Orlando West went on strike and refused to go to school. This strike spread rebellion.
- Riots Break Out
- Don't let them control us!
- 20,000 students took part in this peaceful strike along with their strike organizer, Tsietsi Mashinini. They sang anti-apartheid liberation songs, and clinched their fists raised to the air chanting black power. Eventually this attracted negative attention from the white police officers who didn't like this at all as they showed in big numbers to intimidate and arrest the people striking as this was illegal to do under the laws of apartheid.
- Deaths
- Oh my! This is horrible!!
- The police deployed a dog into the crowd to bite the black strikers and soon after it was released they beat the dog to death and killed it. A police officer fired a shot into the air which caused students to panic, they then started firing their guns into the crowd shooting at them killing a 13 year old boy named Hector Peterson who became well known around the world after this day. 1,500 police officers were deployed to Soweto on June 17 carrying automatic rifles, stun guns and carbines. The military was also on standby to show force.
- Aftermath
- Let's celebrate freedom!
- The police violence made peaceful strikes turn into a massive riot that went on for 4 days. This riot caused mass destruction of the surrounding buildings in the area and many injuries to civilians and also many mass casualties.
- Estimated report that about 175 people died in the riots, with majority of them being black deaths and around 2 being white people. There were over 1,200 injured and that made emergency clinics become swamped with injured and bloody children. The police had requested for the hospital to provide a list of all victims with bullet wounds to prosecute them for rioting, but doctors refused.
- Wahhh!!
- The Soweto Uprising is one of the best-known events in the struggle against apartheid and drastically changed the socio-political landscape of South Africa. Images of the riots in the paper spread around the world causing international condemnation of the apartheid government. Over the next year riots spread to other parts of South Africa. Today the uprising is celebrated as a holiday in South Africa.
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