The Soweto Uprising

By Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu

Introduction
To explain the Soweto uprising different authors place emphasis on various factors.
Some highlight structural changes in the economy and society, including political
changes brought about by apartheid; some stress the emergence of youth subcultures
in Soweto’s secondary schools in the 1970s; some emphasise the transformative role
of Black Consciousness and its associated organisations; others give prominence to
revolutionary theory and stress the role of the various liberation movements; some
underline the ideological role of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at selected
schools; and others insist on educational, epistemological and pedagogical factors
that fostered resistance through the ‘autonomous’ actions of parents and students.
All these important causal factors need to be taken into account when analysing the
historical origins of the Soweto uprising.
There are different types of texts connected to the historiography of the uprising,
for example academic historical texts and oral history testimonies.2

Like historians,
political scientists are interested in the Soweto uprising. Others portray the uprising in

1 Acronym for South Western Townships.
2 See the various texts on the Soweto Uprisings, including S.M. Ndlovu, The Soweto Uprising: Counter-memories of
June 1976 (Randburg: Ravan Press, 1998); P. Bonner and L. Segal, Soweto: A History, (Cape Town: Maskew Miller,
1998); P. Bonner, ‘The Soweto Uprisings of June 1976’, in South African History Project, and Institute for Justice
and Reconciliation publication on Turning Points in History: People, Places and Apartheid, Book 5 (Johannesburg:
STE Publishers, 2004), chapter 2, ‘25 Years Ago in Soweto’; The Star, 16 June 2001; S. Mkhabela, Open Earth and
Black Roses: Remembering 16 June 1976 (Johannesburg: Skotaville, 2001); A. Majeke, ‘The 1976 Soweto Uprisings:

Education, Law, and the Language Issue in South Africa’, PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 1994; H. Pohlandt-
McCormick, ‘“I saw a Nightmare…” Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprisings, June 16, 1976’, PhD thesis,

Minnesota University, 1999’; P. M. Cillie: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Riots at Soweto and Elsewhere
from 16th June to the 28th February 1977; N. Diseko, ‘The Origins and Development of the South African Student
Movement (SASM): 1968–1976’, Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 1, 18, 1992; K.A. Hlongwane et.al., Soweto
76: Reflections on the Liberation Struggles – Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of June 16, 1976 (Johannesburg,
Mutloatse Arts Heritage Trust, 2006).

318 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2

imaginative literature and literary theory; the uprising is also covered in various multi-
media and artistic forms that include television documentaries, films, photography,

and art.3
This chapter does not exhaustively explore the sources mentioned above or the
multi-causal factors dealt with in other chapters of this volume. The focus here
falls mainly on the socio-economic structural changes affecting Soweto; the role of
Afrikaner nationalist ideology; educational and epistemological issues; the relevance
and centrality of Afrikaans to the uprising; and the role of the South African Student
Movement (SASM). The discussion relies on archival material and oral history
testimonies including those of teachers, whose distinct voices have been overlooked
in most historical narratives about the uprisings. The chapter ends with a look at the
spread of the uprising beyond Soweto, with special reference to the Witwatersrand
townships of Alexandra, Thembisa, Katlehong, Vosloorus and Thokoza.
Soweto youth in the early 1970s
Studies about township youth are limited in focus. In the 1970s and 1980s they tended
to concentrate on gangsters, thug life or student activists.4

Studies about township
student activists, specifically, lean heavily on generational theory that was imported
and adapted to the South African situation; they rely on Harold Wolpe’s notion of
the ‘school as a politically protected space’ relatively shielded from the repressive state
apparatuses. This argument is unconvincing, however, because it was impossible
for apartheid-inspired Bantu Education to provide a protected space. The argument
differs markedly from the reality in African schools. Moreover, attending school was
not compulsory for African students and, therefore, parents were not obliged to make
their children go to school. During a parliamentary debate, ‘Punt’ Janson offered the
following defence of this policy:
If we were to introduce compulsory education today [in 1975] from the age of
seven, it would mean that a total of 97 000 teachers and as many classrooms
would have to be made available. This is calculated on the basis of one teacher
for 30 pupils, a basis which is in line with those of the other departments. The
cost involved is R126 million in respect of salaries, and R330 million to provide
the classrooms which will have to be made available to these people5
3 See for example A. Mokadi, Narrative as Creative History: The 1976 Soweto Uprisings as Depicted in Black South African
Novels (Johannesburg: Sedibeng Publishers, 2003); H. Mashabela, A People on the Boil – Reflections on Soweto
(Johannesburg: Skotaville, 1987); M. Mzamane, The Children of Soweto (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982); M. Tlali,
Amandla (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1980); Bonner and Segal, Soweto; A History. See also M. Ngema’s play Sarafina.
On poetry see S. Sepamla, The Soweto I Love (Johannesburg: AD Donker, 1977). See also, for example, the following two
feature films: A Dry White Season and Cry Freedom; on documentaries see the SABC documentary, ‘Two Decades … Still
June 16’.
4 C. Glaser, ‘When are They Going to Fight? Tsotsis, Youth Politics and the PAC’ in P. Bonner and others, Apartheid’s
Genesis, 1935–1962 (Randburg: Ravan Press, 1993); C. Glaser, ‘Youth Culture and Politics in Soweto, 1958-1976’, PhD
thesis, Cambridge University, 1994; C. Glaser, ‘We Must Infiltrate the Tsotsis: School Politics and Youth Gangs in
Soweto, 1968–1976’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 2, 1998; J. Seekings, ‘Quiescence and the Transition to
Confrontation: South African Townships, 1978-1984’, PhD thesis, Oxford University, 1990.
5 Hansard (South African Parliamentary House of Assembly Debates), 6 May 1975, column 5477.

The Soweto Uprising 319
The poverty in which most African families lived had far-reaching implications for
many children. As a result, the boundaries were not always clear between childhood,
adolescence and adulthood. The youth of ‘school-going age’ spent their days on
the streets doing odd jobs and playing, but mostly taking responsibility for their
siblings and homes while their parents were at work from early morning until late
at night. Many had to raise cash for their families as hawkers (selling fruit, peanuts
and other goods on trains and at various railway stations) and others worked full
time as providers. Child labourers included ‘spanner boys’, who helped fix cars and
those who sold coal and firewood, as Soweto had no electricity. Some of Soweto’s
youth belonged to various sports clubs including youth recreation clubs made up of
arts, drama, dance groups and choristers. Others were involved in religious activities.
Antoinette ‘Tiny’ Sithole, Hector Pieterson’s sister, recalls: ‘I was in a church choir …
at St Paul’s, near Crossroads in White City but in other youth clubs and things I was
not involved, and I know some of the youths would go … later in the afternoon …
to the club houses, some would dance, do drama or whatever.’6

Sibongile Mkhabela

reminisces as follows about her high school days in Soweto:
The church was central to our family life. We were part of the then popular
and dynamic Pimville district of the Methodist Church in Africa … The
YWCA had facilitated a positive reawakening among young people. It was
exciting to listen to people such as Dr Ellen Khuzwayo, the then president
of the YWCA, Bro Tom Manthata of the Black People’s Convention, George
Wauchope and other South African Student Organisation leaders who were
organising students through the work of institutions such as the YWCA
and convening seminars which addressed the political and social issues of
the day. It was as a result of these seminars that young minds began to shift
more and more towards a critical awareness then promoted by, and linked
to, the philosophy of Black Consciousness … We were feeling the impact
of the activities of SASO as well as the University Christian Movement
and Students Christian Movement. Through my links to the YWCA and
other township youth clubs, I was exposed to seminars at the St. Aingers
Ecumenical Centre and the Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre. My schoolbooks
started to bear slogans such as ‘Black man you are on your own’, ‘Black and
Proud’, ‘Black is Beautiful’ etc.7
Unemployed youth formed street gangs with names like the Hazels or the Vikings,
each controlling its own territory. But another category of Soweto youth involved
youngsters who were focused on education.8

Life in places like Orlando East was
dicey. Murphy Morobe recalls having to take tough decisions around 1974 either to
join the gangs or become a serious student:

6 Interview with Antoinette Tiny Sithole, conducted by Sifiso Ndlovu for the Hector Pieterson Museum, 20 June 2001.
7 Mkhabela, Open Earth and Black Roses, 26.
8 On schools and gangsters see Glaser, ‘We Must Infiltrate the Tsotsis’.

320 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
In Orlando East, where I stayed … up to ten gangs operated in the area, very
vicious … always involved in scams … The worst form of drug I think that
was available then was really dagga. They hadn’t discovered these fancy things
… like crack, acid and so on … Some of the gangsters [were] influenced a lot
by American war movies …, especially those that were based on the Second
World War events, Kelly’s Heroes. There was a gang called Kelly’s Heroes,
the Bansins Gang – the Bansins wore a particular type of gear, you know
the gabardine … You had the ZX5 gang – ZX5 that was in the sign of the
Swastika … you had the Kwaitos gang [and] you had the Vikings.9
Morobe decided to do something meaningful with his life and future.
When I had to make my decision about where to go for my final years of
high school, one of the greatest things that influenced my decision were the
gangsters. My decision was I need to go away to a place far from the gangsters
– in my own area the gangsters I would associate with or hang out with would
be the Green Berets – and territorial issues there. You couldn’t just walk freely
from one section to the other of the township without being accosted, or even
assaulted. So I made my choices. One of my choices was that I’m not going
to Orlando High School, even though Orlando High School was a very good
school and nearby … Morris Isaacson High School had … a very strong
reputation for… being focused in terms of education. So Morris Isaacson’s
reputation was one of the main attractions for me, apart from the fact that
it was going to be an opportunity to spend my day time hours away from
Orlando East, being a different location in Central Western Jabavu, CWJ.
Basically it meant that I should take double transport to school and Morris
Isaacson High School was a very strict school.10
Yet not even the ‘protected space’ of Morris Isaacson could shut out the heat from
the cauldron of student life in South African schools. According to Hyslop, school
upheavals have a long history in South Africa that goes back to the nineteenth
century, most of them in missionary boarding institutions. By 1974, student upheavals
began to shift from boarding to urban day schools and student movements emerged.
Township schools across the country were awakening politically and developing
well-articulated demands on educational issues.11 In Soweto, young teachers from
Fort Hare, Turfloop, and Zululand Universities guided school students. They were
often linked to SASO. Some of these politically conscious teachers were graduates
of various teacher-training colleges as well. For Fikile Ngcobo, an English language
teacher at Orlando West Junior Secondary School in 1976 who had graduated from

9 Interview with Murphy Morobe, conducted by Ben Magubane and Greg Houston, 4 March 2004, SADET Oral History
Project. See also Glaser, ‘We Must Infiltrate the Tsotsis’.
10 Interview with Murphy Morobe.
11 J. Hyslop, ‘School Student Movements and State Education Policy: 1972-87’, in W. Cobbett and R. Cohen (eds),
Popular Struggles in South Africa (Oxford: James Currie, 1988); J. Hyslop, The Classroom Struggle: Policy and Resistance
in South Africa, 1940-1990 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1999).

The Soweto Uprising 321
one of the teacher training colleges, political conscientisation went as far back as her
childhood days whilst growing up in Sophiatown:
I grew up in an environment at times when I saw politicians from the ANC,
Mandela himself and Oliver Tambo when they were still lawyers. I could see
those people meeting within Sophiatown … and there was a newspaper, New
Age it was called, and I would read New Age … When the ANC went to
have its own meetings, we as little children would follow the masses to the
square where they went and we would be listening to this ‘Mayibuye iAfrika’
and all the things they said … I know New Age influenced me … I was able
to read English then and I could sit in the toilet and read the newspaper and
everybody could look for me and I’d still be reading. And, of course, how
people were removed from Sophiatown … So I think with me it really started
in those days. But the much more clearer political influence came with the
Steve Bikos in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As much as I wasn’t an active
member of the Black Consciousness Movement I believed strongly in it …
I could understand the politics; I was reading the history … I was a teacher
by then. I could understand the need for being proud of myself, being proud,
being able to accept myself as I am and do things for myself and start being
involved. So Biko’s philosophy had a great bearing on me and how I then
started applying myself as a working person, as a teacher and actually being
able to listen to what students had, what younger people had, which direction
they were taking, whether they believed in themselves as blacks.12
There are thus multi-faceted layers of identities, and not just juvenile delinquency,
concerning the youth in Soweto and other black townships. Weighing heavily upon
township residents, however, were the difficult socio-economic conditions under
which everyone lived.
Socio-economic changes and resultant impact on Soweto
The main propagators of the socio-economic structural analysis ‘thesis’ include Philip
Bonner and Helena Pohlandt-McCormick. Bonner argues that between 1954 and 1960
over 50 000 houses were built in Soweto. The rate of this building slowed down in the
early 1960s and stopped completely in 1965. In addition, after 1960 the government
began to restrict and even remove the minimum rights enjoyed by urban Africans, who
were told they could enjoy political and civic rights only in ‘homelands’ like Transkei
and Bophuthatswana. The policy shift in 1960 resulted in state revenue and resources
being redirected from African urban areas to the homelands. Between 1962 and 1971
no new secondary schools were built in Soweto. The number of African children
enrolling at primary schools expanded more rapidly than the resources allocated

12 Interview with Fikile Ngcobo conducted by Sifiso Ndlovu for the Hector Pieterson Museum, 15 July 2001.

322 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
to the education sector, with some classes comprising more than 100 students. Not
surprisingly, teachers were forced to teach double sessions each day.13
With the passing of the Bantu Homelands Citizen Act in 1970, the apartheid
regime took a decisive step to strip urban Africans of their South African citizenship.
The act compelled all Africans to become citizens of whatever ethnic homeland from
which they were supposed to have originated, whether or not they had set foot there
in their lifetime. The Minister of Bantu Administration had powers to prohibit the
employment of Africans in any specified area, or in any specified class of employer or
employment. Enforcement of Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act became vicious and,
to accommodate Africans endorsed out of the white areas, whether from towns or
farms, the government accelerated what it referred to as ‘Bantu’ towns and resettlement
villages in the homelands. But the shortage of labour and skilled African workforce
undermined apartheid policies.14
During 1971 there was a rapid shift in the position of business towards a more
engaged attitude on the question of education and training. The recession of 1968-
1969 had forced business into a reappraisal of future strategies as it had become clear
that the lack of black employees with suitable education and training had now come
to the crunch. In 1971 the government backed down on the Physical Planning Act
restrictions in the employment of African labour in urban industry. The establishment
of new industrial areas was deregulated, except the Southern Transvaal, and even
there industries which were ‘locality bound’ or ‘white labour intensive’ were
exempted from labour controls. Thus by late 1971 the basis was laid for important
changes in state labour and education policies. A decisive shift came early in 1972,
when the government finally accepted that spending on urban African schools would
be financed from state consolidated revenue funds and no longer linked to black
taxation.15 Circumstances on the ground contradicted this particular policy, however,
leading to considerable disgruntlement among urban Africans.
Bowing to business and economic pressure and creating a volatile situation, in 1972
the government reversed its policy of building no new secondary schools in townships
like Soweto and introduced the concept of Junior Secondary schools. There was a
phenomenal increase in attendance at secondary school level for Africans in general.
The enrolment of 178 959 in 1974 increased to 389 066 in 1976, a 140% increase in
two years. Between 1972 and 1974, as many as 40 new schools were built in Soweto
alone and secondary enrolments grew from 12 656 to 34 656, a jump of nearly 300%.
All this vastly contributed to a school-going youth consciousness and solidarity.
16
Massive increases in oil prices, due to the Arab-Israel conflict, in 1973–74, combined
with rapid inflation, pushed the world economy into deep depression. In 1974 only
13 Bonner, ‘The Soweto Uprisings’; Bonner and Segal, Soweto: A History; Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a Nightmare’,
chapter 2; See also Hansard, 6 May 1975, column 5478.
14 Bonner, ‘The Soweto Uprisings’; Bonner and Segal, Soweto: A History; Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a Nightmare’,
chapter 2.
15 J. Hyslop, ‘Social Conflicts over African Education in South Africa from the 1940s to 1976’, PhD, thesis, University of
the Witwatersrand, 1990, 424.
16 Bonner, ‘The Soweto Uprisings’; Bonner and Segal, Soweto: A History. See also Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a Nightmare’.

The Soweto Uprising 323
0.53% of the gross national product was expended on so-called ‘Bantu’ education.
This meant an amount of R102 million out of a gross of over R19 000 million. In 1975
a sharp drop in the gold price aggravated South Africa’s economic difficulties. During
the economic downturn of 1975, African schools were starved of funds. For every
R644 the government spent on a white student, R42 was spent on an African student.
A cash-strapped government attempted to save money by reducing its expenditure
on the African majority, and above all on the residents of the African townships. All
township services and amenities suffered, including the schools.17
In a further attempt to save money the Bantu Education Department decided to
reduce the number of school years from 13 to 12. In 1975 Bantu Education policy
makers decided to drop the last year of primary school, Standard 6 (Grade 8). At
the beginning of 1976 pupils completing Standard 5 were able to proceed directly
to secondary school. In that year, therefore, Standard 5 and Standard 6 graduated
into secondary schooling together. In 1976, 257 505 pupils enrolled in Form 1
(Standard Seven), the first year of secondary school, but only 38 000 students could be
accommodated. Overcrowding reached new heights. Educational standards declined
further. The injustices of Bantu Education were becoming increasingly intolerable.18
As an example, to ease congestion, some of the Form 1 and Form 2 classes at Phefeni
Junior Secondary School were transferred to rented classroom space in Orlando
East’s defunct Khanya Primary School, next to the Orlando Football Stadium. These
makeshift arrangements exacerbated an already intolerable situation as the physical
structure of Phefeni Junior Secondary School, had not been adequate in the first
place. It was an old primary school building commandeered to accommodate the
growing number of junior secondary school students. The original primary school
pupils had been transferred elsewhere around the Orlando West precinct.
The sudden growth in the number of secondary and primary school pupils
meant that a major change had taken place in the structure of Soweto’s population,
particularly that of its youth. The following table compiled from parliamentary
debates in the House of Assembly is provided by Pohlandt-McCormack: 19
Year Primary
Schools

No of Pupils Secondary
Schools

No of Pupils
1972 196 131 582 19 12 656
1973 207 144 866 21 14 731
1974 220 142 270 32 18 281
1975 223 143 020 38 25 598
1976 249 137 157 41 34 656

17 Ibid.
18 Ibid. See also Hansard, 6 May 1975.
19 Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a Nightmare’, 79; Hansard, 21 January to 24 June 1977, column 155-56.

324 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2

According to Bonner, structural changes do not automatically lead to new socio-
political consequences. Political changes occur when people begin to think and

behave in a different way, that is, when consciousness, cultures and identities change.
Such changes occurred in Soweto during the 1970s and provided the link between
structural changes and political action. What emerged as a result of the growth of
secondary schooling was a new subculture in Soweto – a new collective identity. The
impetus among African youth came from schooling under apartheid.
The Broederbond and the promotion of Afrikaans20
Goke-Pariola argues that language is related to power in many ways. Indeed, access
to language is often a prerequisite to power, regardless of whether a social group is
mono- or multilingual. Analysing the historical development of Afrikaans, we become
aware of the connections between language use and unequal relations of power.
21
In their seminal book about the Broederbond, the secret society behind Afrikaner
ascendance that was formed in 1914, Wilkins and Strydom note that the policy of
forcing more Africans to use Afrikaans was articulated in a secret policy document
of September 1968 titled ‘Afrikaans as a Second Language for the Bantu’. The
Broederbond discussed the importance of imposing Afrikaans on Africans and noted
considerable progress in this regard: ‘Two years ago in our monthly circular we drew
attention of members to the importance of using Afrikaans to Bantu. That idea and
the hints given with it created widespread interest and have borne fruit. As a result,
most right thinking Afrikaans speakers today address the Bantu in Afrikaans whenever
they meet them.’22
During 1968 the discussions triggered by the circular had moved in a portentous
direction. The Bantu Education Department’s executive council meeting of 21 March
1968 declared:
The Babanango division is of the opinion that Afrikaans as spoken word is
neglected in Bantu education. Broeders in responsible circles have confirmed
that much has already been done to give Afrikaans its rightful place, but that
20 On the Broederbond see I. Wilkins and H. Strydom, The Super-Afrikaners: Inside the Afrikanerbond,(Johannesburg:
Jonathan Ball, 1978); I. Wilkins, The Broederbond (New York: Paddington Press, 1979); T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa:
A Modern History (London: Macmillan, 1991). See also T.D. Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom, Power, Apartheid and the
Afrikaner Civil Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
21 A. Goke-Pariola, The Role of Language in the Struggle for Power and Legitimacy in Africa (Lewiston: E. Mellen, 1993);
R. Bain, Exploring Language and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); J.E Joseph and T.J. Taylor
(eds.), Ideologies of Language (London: Routledge, 1990); PT. Roberge, ‘The Ideological Profile of Afrikaans Historical
Linguistics’ in Joseph and Taylor, Ideologies of Language, 131-149; Z. Magubane, Bringing the Empire Home: Race,
Class, and Gender in Britain and Colonial South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); J. Fabian, Language
and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the Former Belgian Congo, 1880-1938 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986); D. Laitin, Language Repertoires and State Construction in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992); P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1991).
22 The section involving the Broederbond archival documents is largely based on I. Wilkins and H. Strydom, The Super
Afrikaners, chapter 13. See also I. Wilkins, The Broederbond. It is difficult for a researcher to access the Broederbond
archives.

The Soweto Uprising 325
there were many problems. It is recommended that Executive refer this issue
to Broeders in the department with the request that serious attention should
be paid continuously to the use of Afrikaans in Bantu education.23
The following claims about language, education and the political economy are
reflected in one of the Broederbonds’ documents:

23 Wilkins and Strydom, The Super Afrikaners, chapter 13.
24 Ibid.

326 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
of Afrikaans has become a status symbol to them. Unwittingly they make a
contribution to the promotion of Afrikaans among their people.

Afrikaans and the road to revolt
The enforcement of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in African schools was
accelerated during the early 1970s. The Minister of Bantu Education, M.C. Botha,
also the Minister of Bantu Affairs and Development, and his deputies, ‘Punt’ Janson
and A. Treurnicht, were prominent members of the Broederbond. Treurnicht was a
former chairperson of the Broederbond. In 1973 the Department of Bantu Education
issued a policy document, Circular no. 2 of 1973, entitled ‘Medium of Instruction in

25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.

The Soweto Uprising 327
Secondary Schools (and STD 5 classes) in White Areas’. Section A of the circular,
referring to ‘Policy to be applied and arrangements to be made in the white areas’,
accorded both English and Afrikaans 50:50 status as official languages of instruction
from the last year of primary school until completion of high school. 27 The following
year, in 1974, the Regional Director of Bantu Education in the Southern Transvaal
issued a regional circular about the implementation of the language policy. The
regional circular No 2 of 1974 addressed to all school principals clearly stated that
Std 5, Forms 1 and 2 students were to use English as a medium of instruction when
studying ‘General Science, Practical Subjects (Homecraft, Needlework, Woodwork,
Metalwork, Art and Craft and Agricultural Science)’. Afrikaans was to be used as
a medium of instruction for ‘Wiskunde (Rekenkunde) and Sosiale Studie’ classes.
These students also enrolled for three language classes, that is, vernacular (isiZulu or
seSotho), Afrikaans and English.28
In Soweto schools, mother tongue had been the medium of instruction at junior
primary prior to 1975. In 1976 the Secretary for Bantu Education instructed some
higher primary and junior secondary schools to implement Afrikaans as a medium
of instruction. In 1975, Form 1 students in all junior secondary schools were learning
in English. When in 1976 the Department of Bantu Education enforced Afrikaans
in selected schools, the affected African pupils were required to adapt to learning in
two ‘foreign’ languages within two years, first English in 1975 and then Afrikaans in

  1. Most students from Soweto are multilingual and are proficient in more than
    one indigenous African language and, therefore, a sizeable number were fourth or
    fifth language speakers of both English and Afrikaans. The language issue affecting
    selected schools in Soweto brought important and complex epistemological factors
    to the fore. If one changes from one language to another, the reality that was created
    through the first language, that is, mother tongue, is completely lost. As a result,
    African pupils who were compelled to use Afrikaans relied on rote learning. Bantu
    Education Minister M.C. Botha would later concede this fact following the uprising,
    when he said: ‘The introduction of a “foreign language” as a medium in the primary
    school was a backward step educationally with which the department would not like
    to be associated: Concept formation and understanding at this stage takes place best
    through the vernacular.’29
    Most teachers in African schools were of the opinion that even without the
    exacerbation brought about by misguided language policies, Bantu Education did
    not promote the production of critical thinkers. Hence rote learning and cramming
    were the only skills really being developed and assessed by the Bantu Education
    system. The questions students were supposed to ask in the classroom were purely
    for purposes of clarification, not for critical analysis and analytical interpretation of

27 This important circular is part of the Appendix in Majeke, ‘The 1976 Soweto Uprisings’.
28 Office of the Regional Director of Bantu Education Southern Transvaal Region, Regional Circular No 2 of 1974, ‘To All
Principals: Southern Transvaal Region: Uniform Approach in Schools’. A copy of the circular is available at the Hector
Pieterson Museum.
29 The World, 18 June 1976 , ‘Botha Defends Language Rule’.

328 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
content. The teacher was thus above questioning and this did not equip students with
a range of intellectual and learning skills. Fikile Ngcobo explains the transmission
approach involved thus:
You had a teapot full with tea. There’s this empty mug or empty cup which is
the student and all you do is pour into it until it is full. How it gets full, how
it feels when it gets full was just one thing that never was thought of and,
of course … I think we did a disservice of not being able to accommodate
students and that’s where … the frustration of students began because …
there were things they knew but teachers felt they knew them better and
would never do any listening.30
On the strained relationship, the tension and the loss of trust between the teachers
and the students, Ngcobo comments:
Students looked at you and smiled, but it was not an ordinary smile and
you spoke to teachers and they told you: ‘We don’t know what is happening
around here.’ You could sense the tension and, of course … there had been
quite a number of talks, dissatisfaction about the instructions that had been
got by the principals and it had been in the newspapers that everything must
be taught, that there should be a switch and especially mathematics to be
taught in Afrikaans. I think that’s what actually made everybody go berserk.31
About the problems raised by the sudden switch to Afrikaans, she remarks:
We had special Afrikaans teachers, teachers who had specialised, or who knew
Afrikaans and taught Afrikaans as a language subject. But to suddenly come
to teach your Social Studies, which is Geography and History, in Afrikaans, to
teach your Hygiene/Health or the Science subjects in Afrikaans and to teach
Mathematics in Afrikaans just did not make sense and the teachers themselves
were very uncomfortable because they didn’t know the language.
In frustration, Ngcobo says, teachers at Phefeni Junior Secondary petitioned the
Department of Bantu Education; she adds:
It had to be delivered because teachers there were just feeling ‘no way can
we do it’. I remember I hadn’t signed that petition because I had been away
and mine was to add my name onto that petition to say it just does not make
sense to use Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. But … we knew what it
meant for us. If we could just go ahead, there was also fear of treading into
troubled waters because that would have meant trouble for us, too. We would
have been seen [as] not wanting to do our work, let alone instigation … The
schools seemed to be running normal but the students were not normal.
And they had protested, actually as you entered a classroom you could get
30 Interview with Fikile Ngcobo.
31 Ibid.

The Soweto Uprising 329
the anger, they voiced it out but they were surprised (at our passivity) … It
was easy for the authorities to get rid of you for not wanting to do your work
… Anybody … saying ‘this is wrong’ would have been aligned with being
within, bringing a political ideology of the Black Consciousness Movement
into the classroom. The ANC was banned, you wouldn’t hear of the ANC
then; there was just no ANC. Whatever happened, happened under the ambit
of the Black Consciousness Movement.32
Ngcobo explains the obfuscation that afflicted teachers and students at her school in
Phefeni Junior Secondary as a result of the new language policy:
They were phasing out English as a medium of instruction. That in itself
was confusion because they had the same teachers to teach them from Form
1 to Form 3. You can imagine if a person has to teach Form I in a different
language, which is not a first language to that person, it’s a second, third
or whatever it is. And then also start teaching another foreign language,
foreign in terms of it not being the mother tongue of the teacher for the same
subject at another level … How do you then deal with continuity, how do
you then relate to your different classes … what you were teaching and start
reminding the student in Form 3, ‘remember I started with this in Form
I, this is what I said’ … because now it’s a whole language switch? So it
wasn’t just the problem that the students had. It was also the problem for the
teacher. The teacher had to take through all these pupils and make a success
of that and yet he or herself had not been taught to use … (Afrikaans) as
a medium of instruction … in terms of teacher training for secondary and
high school … The medium was English.33
The more difficult the subject was, the more insurmountable the problem became.
Mathematical sciences were a challenge to the pupils because they were taught the
basic concepts in their mother tongue during four years at lower primary school. As
an example, some learned arithmetic, that is, izibalo, from Sub A to Standard 2 in
isiZulu. Then they used English at higher primary school, with teachers periodically
reverting to mother tongue/vernacular in order to explain difficult concepts and to
drive a relevant point home. In 1975, first year junior secondary school students were
taught mathematics in English. Then the following year, they were compelled to learn
mathematics in Afrikaans. Our mathematics teacher at Phefeni Junior Secondary was
never trained to teach mathematics in Afrikaans. She was trained professionally in
English. We felt the sudden changes in our teachers, observing differences in quality
over the two years, 1975–76. Our teachers were no longer confident, enthusiastic and
articulate in front of the classroom.34

32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Personal recollections.

330 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
Elliot Ndlovu, a mathematics teacher and school principal at Lophama Junior
Secondary School in Orlando East, explained these problems. His son was Hastings
Ndlovu, the first student to be killed by the police during the Soweto uprising. Eliot
Ndlovu had to adapt his teaching style. His teaching style now involved translating
English into Afrikaans and vice-versa, not a good teaching method but a survival
teaching strategy. Thys De Beer, the Soweto circuit school inspector, came to evaluate
progress. Ndlovu describes the encounter as follows:
In 1976 De Beer came to my school whilst I was teaching mathematics. He
says: ‘Meneer, kyk jong, hoe ver is jy? (Sir, how far are you with your syllabus?).
Ek se: ‘Ek is baie ver, … kom luister (I say: I am very far, … come and listen).
He came in my class to listen and observe. I went on with my lesson in
Afrikaans. I was not struggling … I simply translated what I learned at school
in English into Afrikaans … So when I taught mathematics to my Form Ones
in Afrikaans I was actually teaching in English and then translate everything
into Afrikaans … So when De Beer got into my class he found me during the
Afrikaans translation stage.35
De Beer was convinced that implementing the Afrikaans language policy at Elliot
Ndlovu’s school was a success: ‘He got to his car and went back to the school board
offices and castigated the school board members for lying to him about the use of
Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. He asked them to come to my school and find
out the truth … I was in all sort of trouble.’36 A furious school board chairman visited
Elliot Ndlovu to complain. Ndlovu explains:
The school board chairman came by car and asked me: ‘Lelibhunu ulenzeni?’
(What have you done to this Afrikaner?). Ngithi (I say): ‘No, I went on with
the lessons whilst he was at my school and … after that he said “Dankie”
and he went back to his car and left.’ The school board chairman said: ‘No,
man, uphuma lapha kimi, uthi (he is from my place and says): ‘I am convinced
that Afrikaans can be used as medium of instruction’.’I said in return: ‘Does
he mean one swallow makes a summer? Does he know what I did to get to
that standard? He did not ask me!’ … De Beer was convinced that it could
be done … I said: ‘I taught them in English and then from there I translated
everything into Afrikaans!’37
All this brought to the fore the acrimonious relations between the school board and
the authorities.
Intervention by teachers, school boards, journalists and
homeland leaders
African parents, journalists, school principals, teachers and even homeland leaders
opposed the imposition of Afrikaans in African schools. On 3 January 1975, the
35 Interview with Elliot Ndlovu, conducted by Sifiso Ndlovu for the Hector Pieterson Museum, 21 July 2001.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid

The Soweto Uprising 331
African Teachers’ Association of South Africa (ATASA) submitted a memorandum to
the Department of Bantu Education protesting the ruling that from 1975 Afrikaans
and English should be used on 50:50 bases – the ruling was actually implemented
in 1976 at selected schools.38 The memorandum, signed by H. Dlamlenze, ATASA
general secretary, requested the Minister of Bantu Education, to reconsider the

proposed regulations. ATASA described the government’s ruling as cruel and short-
sighted; it did not make sense to base the education of any child on the assumption

that the child would be restricted to a particular area for life. It was wrong to choose
the language of instruction on the basis of whether a particular locality or area was
predominantly Afrikaans or English speaking. ATASA argued that Africans preferred
English because it was used internationally for commercial, diplomatic, intellectual,
artistic, educational, and communication purposes.39
Three days later, on 6 January 1975, The World, the newspaper with the widest
circulation in Soweto, endorsed ATASA’s position in its editorial:
Why should we in the urban areas have Afrikaans – a language spoken
nowhere else in the world and which is still in a raw state of development, in
any case – pushed down our throats? The implications of this new directive
are too serious to leave now. We urge parents to join forces with teachers
all over the country and fight the directive. The Government must be left
in no doubt at all about how seriously we view their highhanded action …
The situation can only deteriorate further unless the new regulations are
scrapped.40
The Department of Bantu Education dismissed all such protests. M.C. Botha disclosed
in parliament on 5 May 1975 that the matter had received careful consideration at a
meeting between chief ministers from the various homelands and Prime Minister B.J.
Vorster. He explained that the government was not prepared to accede to the request
of homeland representatives to scrap the regulation. In addition, Botha continued,
the government could not conceivably approve English as the only medium of
instruction, if this ‘should be the wish of some of the homelands’. The government
held the view that both English and Afrikaans, as official languages, should be used
if the relevant ‘Bantu language is not used for this purpose’. The following day, when
opposition members of parliament asked ‘Punt’ Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu
Education, whether his department had consulted African parents concerning the use
of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, he replied:
[B]etween 60% and 65% of the White population are Afrikaans-speaking.
However, we agreed to give full recognition to the two official languages. A
Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work
38 Personal recollections.
39 The World, 3 January 1975, ‘Language Row: ATASA Protests’. See also S.P. Lekgoathi, ‘African Teachers’ Associations
in the Transvaal: From Militant Challenge to Moderate Protests, 1950-1976’, mini Honours dissertation, University of
the Witwatersrand, 1991.
40 The World: editorial, 6 January 1975, ‘Scrap Dual Language Ruling’.

332 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and
the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking
or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the
medium of instruction among the Black people as well? … No, I have not
consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa … The leaders of the various
homelands can in due course decide what they want to do in their own
homelands where they are the masters. However, as far as the white areas
are concerned this is a decision that has been taken and I am going to stand
by it.41
This self-serving argument became inflexible policy, leading inexorably to
confrontation.
From the Cillie Commission (set up to investigate the uprising) and newspapers
such as The World, we can reconstruct the chronology of events leading to the Soweto
uprising from the beginning of 1976.
Minutes of a meeting of the Meadowlands Tswana School Board on 20 January
1976, held at Moruto-Thuto Lower Primary school, state that the circuit inspector,
who was white, had ordered the school board, made up of African parents and
teachers, to enforce the teaching of social studies and mathematics in Afrikaans. The
remaining subjects were to be taught in English. He told the school board that taxes
paid by Africans were sent to the various homelands for educational purposes there. In
urban areas, he said, the white population paid for the education of the African child.
Therefore, the Department of Bantu Education had the responsibility to satisfy the
English and Afrikaans communities. The only way to satisfy these white groups was
to enforce the medium of instruction in African schools on a 50:50 basis. The school
board replied that it was not opposed to the principle as such but as parents they had
the right to choose the medium of instruction. The dictatorial and combative circuit
inspector stated, in reply, that the school board had no such right and had no choice
but to implement the directives from the Department of Bantu Education.42
After the agitated circuit inspector had walked out of the meeting, the defiant
school board adopted English as the medium of instruction, following a motion
by K. Nkamela, seconded by S.G. Thwane. The meeting further resolved that all
the principals under the board’s jurisdiction be informed about the decision. An
acrimonious struggle developed between the Bantu Education Department and the
rebellious Meadowlands Tswana School Board, resulting in the dismissal of two
board members, A. Letlape and J. Peele. The remaining members resigned en masse in
protest at the dismissals. This issue went as far as parliament. On 27 February 1976,
‘Punt’ Janson, told parliament that Letlape and Peele had been dismissed in terms of
regulation 41 (1) of Government Notice R429 of March 1966. Chief Lucas Mangope,

41 Hansard, 6 May 1975, column 5506–5507.
42 The World, 5 March 1976, ‘Meeting on Schools Language Issue’; The World, 8 June 1976 ,‘Parents Stand Firm in
Language Row’; The World, 11 December 1976, ‘School Sacking will not Lead to Withdrawal’.

The Soweto Uprising 333
Tswana homeland leader, took up the matter with the government in late February

  1. Thereafter, he issued an ambiguous statement, informing the school board they
    were free to choose the medium of instruction, in consultation with the Department
    of Bantu Education.43
    The World again challenged the government. In its editorial on 25 February
    1976, it declared that, ‘whether the South African government likes it or not, many
    urban African parents are bitterly opposed to their children being forced to learn in
    Afrikaans’. The newspaper dismissed ‘God-like decisions by white officials – even
    cabinet members – on matters of vital importance to blacks’ and rejected the old racist
    dictum that ‘whites know what is best for blacks’, propagating in its place the principle
    of African parents deciding what was best for their children.44
    The Meadowlands Tswana School Board convened a public meeting at the
    beginning of March 1976. Simultaneously, Mangope and the Department of Bantu
    Education issued statements to the effect that, ‘schools may still apply for exemption
    on the grounds that they do not have teachers qualified to teach Afrikaans’. Together
    with this statement, however, the Bantu Education Department issued an order that
    those classes using Afrikaans must continue until it had investigated the situation.
    Noting the confusing messages, one vexed principal responded:
    Here we are already into March and I am utterly confused about what to do.
    I am applying for exemption from the Afrikaans rule because many teachers
    just are not qualified to teach in this language. As for the children – I have
    seen how some of them are struggling with English. To have Afrikaans on
    top of this is just too much.45
    During a meeting on the weekend of 6 –7 March 1976, held at Thutolore Secondary
    School in Zone One, parents from Meadowlands upheld their decision to reject
    Afrikaans. Furthermore, they instructed S.L. Rathebe, the urban representative of
    the Bophuthatswana homeland government, to pursue the matter with the apartheid
    government. Elizabeth Mathope, one of the parents, told the meeting: ‘We pay for the
    education of our children and we should determine their education.’46
    In February and March 1976, urban representatives of other homelands also became
    involved and appealed to their homelands to intercede on behalf of dismissed school
    boards and against forced transfers of teachers. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Chief
    minister of KwaZulu, addressed a meeting in Soweto in March 1976. Late in April
    1976, ATASA met the Secretary for Bantu Education, to whom they presented another
    memorandum. The teachers’ organisation was promised a ‘new deal’. The World
    cautiously noted that past experience had taught African parents to be wary of all ‘new
    deals’ from the South African government and expressed a ‘wait and see’ attitude.47
    43 The World, 5 March 1976, ‘Meeting on Schools Language Issue’.
    44 The World, 25 February 1976, ‘Asking Too Much of Our Kids’; The World, 13 February 1976, ‘Now I Know Why Teachers
    Want to Get Out’; The World, 21 May 1976, ‘The School Boards are Toothless’.
    45 The World, 25 February 1976, ‘Asking Too Much of Our Kids’, The World, 13 February 1976, ‘Now I Know Why Teachers
    Want to Get Out’; The World, 21 May 1976, ‘The School Boards are Toothless’.
    46 The World, 8 June 1976, ‘Parents Stand Firm in Language Row’.
    47 Ibid.

334 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
Some Soweto school principals succumbed to pressure from the authorities.
Sibongile Mkhabela described Mr Gqibithole, the principal of her school, Dr Vilakazi
High School, as more interested in being seen as a ‘good boy’ by the Department of
Bantu Education. He was determined to keep politics out of the school premises and
keep a vigilant eye on the activities of the students. He was also ‘prone to rages that
often sent him chasing pupils around the school yard while screaming, “Skunk”’;
when Afrikaans was recommended as a medium of instruction, Gqibithole was
among the first principals to agree to implement and test the language policy. 48
According to Colonel J.J. Gerber of the South African Police, from information
received from his intelligence sources, as early as March 1976 pupils in Soweto had
begun passive resistance against Afrikaans.49 At Phefeni Junior Secondary, one of the
pilot schools chosen to implement the 50:50 language policy, students in Form 1 and
Form 2 commenced passive resistance inside the classroom in March 1976. Then they
set up a committee of class representatives, headed by 15-year-old Seth Mazibuko,
to discuss the language issue with Charles Mpulo, the school principal, and other
teachers. This was an initiative to set up an inclusive structure that would take up
student grievances to the school board, circuit inspectors and regional representatives
of Bantu Education. Mazibuko says:
We drew up our petition and we went to see our principal and our principal
had his hands tied up and he said: ‘I cannot do anything otherwise you just
have to do this.’ And in our presence (he) phoned the inspector De Beer,
[who] told him: ‘You are not going to be told by children what to do, you
are running the school and I am an inspector in that school, and there is a
minister who is controlling me so the three of us, dear principal, have a role
to play. Afrikaans! Afrikaans! Afrikaans!’50
The students then decided to utilise their afternoon periods, allocated for sports
and study, to hold meetings. They discussed the disheartening feedback and other
classroom issues, such as low marks in the various subjects that used Afrikaans.
During these afternoon sessions they also held classes, with some ‘knowledgeable’
student assuming the role of teacher and translating what the students had learnt in
Afrikaans into English. Ultimately, they decided to forsake passive resistance and to
go public through overt protest. When the Phefeni Junior Secondary students went
on strike on the 17 May 1976, The World reported the incident under the banner,
‘Anti-Afrikaans Pupils go on Strike in Soweto’. Here is an extract:
Students threatened to beat up their headmaster and threw (Afrikaans)
textbooks out of classroom windows in a demonstration against being taught
some subjects in Afrikaans. The 600 students from Phefeni Junior Secondary
School, Orlando West, then went on strike and refused to attend any classes.

48 Mkhabela, Open Earth and Black Roses, 25.
49 See the Cillie Commission report.
50 Cited from video interview of Seth Mazibuko in the documentary Soweto A History by P. Bonner and Angus Gibson.

The Soweto Uprising 335
In a violent display of pupil power yesterday the students also demanded
the re-instatement of Mr Mahlangu, chairman of the school board, whom
they claimed had been sacked because he was against using Afrikaans for
teaching. The demonstration started after the morning assembly when
students from Form One and Form Two refused to go to their classroom
… Some let down the tyres of the principal’s car. They then confronted the
principal, Mr S. C. Mpulo, and demanded that he call the school inspector.
They said the inspector should come and explain why difficult subjects were
taught in Afrikaans … The head went away and when he came back he told
the students that the inspector had refused to come.51
On 19 May 1976, a committee of class representatives presented a five-point
memorandum protesting against the use Afrikaans to the school principal. They
planned to stage a march to their school board offices at Diepkloof.52 Their counterparts
from nearby Belle Higher Primary School also went on strike in solidarity. The
following day, pupils from Emthonjeni and Thulasizwe Higher Primary Schools in
Orlando East joined the class boycotts. De Beer, the circuit school inspector, stated
that the Bantu Education Department was unconcerned and ‘doing nothing about the
matter’. On 24 May 1976, the striking students were joined by students from Pimville
Higher Primary School and Khulangolwazi Higher Primary School in Diepkloof
and on 1 June 1976 the seventh school, Senaoane Junior Secondary School, joined.
The strike was spreading to different regions in Soweto.53
Concerned parents held emergency meetings with school board and homeland
representatives. On 22 May 1976, a meeting of parents, Orlando-Diepkloof Zulu
school board members, and Inkatha ye Sizwe members, led by Gibson Thula, the
urban representative of KwaZulu, held a meeting at Phefeni Junior Secondary
School. The meeting decided that students should return to school while the matter
received urgent attention.But the striking students largely ignored this plea. On 3 June
1976 pupils at Emthonjeni, Belle, Thulasizwe, and Pimville returned to class. They
had been told apparently that lessons in mathematics and social studies would be
suspended for the time being.54 But students from other schools steadfastly continued
with their strike action.55 By this time the affected schools had formed a co-ordinating
committee, which sought help from senior high school students that were not affected
by the Afrikaans directive such as Naledi, Orlando West, Morris Isaacson and Orlando
High. At Phefeni Junior Secondary the senior (Form 3) students excluded themselves
initially from these processes as they were using English as a medium of instruction.
But subsequently they too were drawn in.

51 The World, 18 May 1976, ‘Anti-Afrikaans Pupils go on Strike in Soweto’.
52 The World, 19 May 1976, ‘Kids Keep up Strike: Big March Planned’.
53 The World, 24 May 1976, ‘16 000 Pupils Keep up Strike’; The World, 25 May 1976, ‘New School Joins Strike’; The World,
1 May 1976, ‘Seventh School Joins the Strike’; The World, 21 May 1976 ,‘The School Boards are Toothless’; Cillie
Commission Report
54 The World, 3 June 1976, ‘School Strike Over: Hundreds of Kids Return to Classes this Morning’.
55 The World, 20 May 1976, ‘Strike School in Deadlock’.

336 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
The Soweto uprising and the role of SASM, BCM, ANC and PAC
The 1977 Political Report adopted by the Plenary Session of the Central Committee
of the SACP reached the following conclusion on the Soweto student uprising:
The events in what has become known as the Soweto revolt are not isolated
happenings; they have their roots in the crisis which has been building up
at every level of socio-economic structure … The intensity of the Soweto
events reflects the development over the years of these people’s reactions to
the growing crisis of apartheid. At the political level, unbroken efforts by our
Party and a whole liberation movement, headed by the ANC, maintained
that spirit of resistance, and helped lay the foundation for the growth of the
heightened revolutionary mood which is in evidence. And, amongst large
numbers of the new militants thrown up by the activities, there is a growing
awareness of the liberating ideas of Marxism-Leninism and a search for the
correct politics of social revolution.56
In 1985 ANC president-in-exile, Oliver Tambo, voiced the opinion that the ANC had
been ill prepared when the Soweto uprising began, concluding that:
This uprising of 1976-77 was, of course, the historic watershed …Within a
short period of time it propelled into the forefront of our struggle millions
of young people … It brought to our midst comrades many of whom had
very little contact with the ANC, if any … Organisationally, in political and
military terms, we were too weak to take advantage of the situation that
crystallised from the first events of 16 June 1976. We had very few active
units inside the country. We had no military presence to speak of. The
communication links between ourselves outside the country and the masses
of our people were still too slow and weak to meet such (a challenge) as was
posed by the Soweto uprising.57
Tambo also placed in perspective the role ANC members played, particularly its
networks in South Africa:
An outstanding role in this situation was, however, played by those of our
comrades who were inside the country, many of them former Robben Island
prisoners. Through their contact with the youth, they were able to make
an ANC input, however limited, in the conduct of the bloody battles of
1976-77 … Among them we would like to select for special mention the
late Comrade Joe Gqabi, former Robben Island prisoner … [who was
assassinated] because [enemy agents] could see that the seeds he had planted
among the youth in Soweto 1976, hardly a year after his release from prison,

56 ‘The Way Forward from Soweto’, Political Report adopted by the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the
South African Communist Party, April 1977, African Communist, no. 70, 1977.
57 Oliver Tambo, ‘Black Consciousness and the Soweto Uprising’, in A. Tambo (ed.), Preparing for Power: Oliver Tambo
Speaks (London: Heinemann, 1987).

The Soweto Uprising 337
and in the subsequent years, were bearing bitter fruit for the oppressors and,
for us, magnificent combatants for the liberation of our country … The
participation of the comrades we have spoken about, in assisting to guide
the Soweto uprising, once more emphasised the vital necessity for us to have
a leadership core within the country, known by us and in touch with the
people, dedicated, brave, with clear perspectives and thus able to lead.58
Before Joe Gqabi was released from Robben Island, Henry ‘Squire’ Makgothi, John
Nkadimeng and Robert ‘Malume’ Manci ran an effective ANC underground cell in
Soweto that they had formed after their release from prison in the early 1970s. In 1975
Stanley Mabizela and Moses Mabhida, who were then based in Swaziland as members
of the ANC underground, contacted them. Mabizela and Mabhida (together with
Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma) instructed Soweto-based cell members to establish
an underground route into Swaziland in order to infiltrate MK cadres in and out
of South Africa. Manci and colleagues achieved this task and enrolled Joe Gqabi,
who joined their underground cell after his release in 1975. By 1975, Soweto students
such as Naledi Tsiki and Mosima ‘Tokyo’ Sexwale had joined the ANC underground.
Tsiki and Sexwale were among the cadres infiltrated in and out of South Africa by the
Soweto-based underground network.59
Billy Masetlha, Tebello Motaponyane and Murphy Morobe, among others, confirm the
existence of this ANC underground network in Soweto. Murphy Morobe remembers:
When I was an affiliate or I was a committed Black Consciousness activist
… there was something you really wanted to know … that related to the
banned organisations. And it was really in 1973/74 that I began slowly to
be exposed to the ideas of the African National Congress, mainly through
Radio Freedom, when some of us [with] short wave radios … would …
listen to Radio Freedom. My friend, Super Moloi, had an uncle who was
a SACTU stalwart, comrade Elliott Shabangu … You listen to Radio
Freedom and then once in a while you will luckily run across a copy of
Sechaba or Msebenzi. If you are luckier you will stumble … upon a copy
of the African Communist … In 1974 we began a process to resuscitate
SASM … myself, Amos Masondo … Billy Masetlha, Super Moloi, Roller
Masinga and Mosala. And in those days it was very difficult. But then …
the situation in the Portuguese colonies turned in … 1973/74, culminating in
the independence (of Mozambique) and of the pro-FRELIMO rallies … in

  1. Those events actually raised the level of consciousness and awareness
    to a very new dimension.60
    On the other hand, the official version of the PAC is that Zeph Mothopeng guided
    the Soweto uprising. He was a resident of Orlando West and a teacher in Soweto
    58 Ibid.
    59 Interview with Robert ‘Malume’ Manci, conducted by S.M. Ndlovu, 8 and 14 March 2001; and interviews with John
    Nkadimeng 13 March, 18 March and 27 May, 2001 conducted by S.M. Ndlovu, SADET Oral History Project.
    60 Interview with Murphy Morobe.

338 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
during 1976 who also co-ordinated the PAC underground in Soweto.61 Sithembele
Khala (Orlando High School) and Dan Mofokeng (Naledi High School) worked
with Mothopeng as part of the PAC underground operating in Soweto in the 1970s.
Mofokeng had been recruited by Naboth Ntshuntsha, who was the chairperson of the
PAC branch in Jabulani, Soweto, and Khala had been recruited by John Ganya, who
led the PAC branch in Chiawelo, Soweto.62 Ganya, Ntshuntsha and Mothopeng were
the core of the PAC’s Soweto Unit. Ganya occasionally went to Kimberley to brief
Sobukwe on developments. On various occasions, he also linked up with the Central
Committee of the PAC in Dar es Salaam.63
The Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) has its own views about the origins
of the Soweto uprising and credits SASM and BPC with sparking events. AZAPO
argues that events prior to June 16 1976 show that no one other than the students,
under the leadership of SASM, can claim responsibility for the uprising. All black
organisations that were operating aboveboard in that period were doing so under
the broad banner of Black Consciousness. The BPC, through its secretary general
Thandisizwe Mazibuko, participated in all meetings convened by the Tswana School
Board, together with Thomas Manthata in his capacity as an official of the South
African Council of Churches. According to AZAPO, at the time of the outbreak of the
uprisings the BPC and the Tswana School Board had engaged the services of a lawyer
to work on an interdict against M.C. Botha.64
This chapter presents a more complex view of events than each liberation
movement does and attempts to go beyond point scoring.
Soweto’s school-going youth and activists generally belonged to student
organisations like SASM – that according to Nozipho Diseko had come into being
in 1968, not in the early 1970s as often claimed. In its infancy, SASM adhered to
no particular ideology. In 1968 students from Diepkloof Secondary School brought
together young people from various organisations in Soweto like the Y-Teens, Leseding
and Youth Alive to establish the movement, initially named the African Students’
Movement. With Black Consciousness gaining ascendancy in the early 1970s, SASM
embraced it as its philosophy. By the end of 1974, however, disenchantment with
BCM led some students to establish links with the ANC. According to Diseko, at
first the relationship was informal but became structured by 1976 with the release
from Robben Island of prominent ANC leaders like Joe Gqabi. Working through
key SASM members, such as Tokyo Sexwale and Naledi Tsiki, the ANC was able to
establish units in Soweto to which some young people were drawn.65

61 See A.K. Hlongwane, ‘To Independence Now, Tomorrow the United States of Africa: The Story of Zeph Lekoame
Mothopeng: 1913-1990’, MA mini-dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 2002.
62 See interviews of S. Khala (in Johannesburg), 3 March 2004 and D. Mofokeng (in Pretoria), 3 November 2003 for the
Hector Pieterson Museum, conducted by S.Ndlovu and A.K. Hlongwane.
63 A.K. Hlongwane, ‘Umaf’avuke Njengesambane: The PAC in the Era of the 1976 Uprisings’, unpublished paper, 2005.
64 Azanian People’s Organisation, ‘June 16 1976, Background and Aftermath’, http://azapo.org.za, 2005.
65 Diseko, ‘The Origins’.

The Soweto Uprising 339
In 1976 student leaders such as Murphy Morobe,66 Sibongile Mkhabela, David
Kutumela67 and Tsietsi Mashinini were affiliated to SASM and, through the efforts of
Zweli Sizane68 and Billy Masetlha, among others, were also connected to BCM. On
28 May 1976, SASM held a conference in Roodepoort. During the conference Aubrey
Mokoena, a member of the Black People’s Convention (BPC) and the Black Parents
Association (BPA), delivered a speech about Black Consciousness, in which he raised
the issue of Afrikaans.69 Student delegates passed a resolution, proposed by V. Ngema
and seconded by T. Motapanyane, against the use of Afrikaans and expressed support
for students boycotting classes. The minutes of the General Students’ Council read:
The recent strikes by schools against the use of Afrikaans as a medium
of instruction is a sign of demonstration against schools’ systematised to
producing ‘good industrial boys’ for the powers that be … We therefore
resolve to totally reject the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, to
fully support the students who took the stand in the rejection of this dialect
(and) also to condemn the racially separated education system. 70
After the May 1976 conference, SASM contacted Seth Mazibuko and other leaders of
the co-ordinating committee from junior secondary and higher primary schools. This
group, with help from SASM, called a meeting at Orlando East on the 13 June 1976.
Mazibuko testified thus during his trial in 1977:
On the 13.6.76 I was attending this meeting. Various schools of Soweto
were present at this meeting; therefore there was a large attendance of the
meeting. The main speaker was a man called Aubrey [not to be confused
with Aubrey Mokoena who was not present] who explained to us what the
aims and objects of SASM were. He also discussed the use of Afrikaans as
a means of tuition or language and called upon the prefects of our schools
to come forward and to explain what the position was there. I stood up and
told the congregation that the Phefeni [Junior Secondary] School refused
to use Afrikaans and they had boycotted classes during May 1976. Aubrey
then enquired how could other schools support us in our stand as they were
writing exams and Phefeni was not … Don [Tsietsi] Mashinini suggested
that a mass demonstration should be held on 16.6.76 by all black schools …
The election for the new [Soweto region] committee for SASM was then
held. The following members were then elected to the committee: President,
Don Mashinini of Morris Isaacson; Vice President, Seth Malibu; myself,
Secretary; a female student from Naledi High School – I do not know what

66 National Archives, Pretoria, SAB K345, vol. 148, part 19, file 2/3, Testimony of Murphy Morobe.
67 Ibid., Testimony of David Lisiwe Kutumela,
68 National Archives, Pretoria, SAB, K 345, vol. 99, part 3, Testimony of Zweli Sizane.
69 National Archives, Pretoria, SAB, K 345, vol. 148, Testimony of A. Mokoena.
70 T.G. Karis and G.M. Gerhart, ‘The 1976 Soweto Uprising’ in From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African
Politics in South Africa, 1882–1990, Nadir and Resurgence, 1964-1979 (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 1997), 569.

340 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
her name is [Sibongile Mkhabela]… Aubrey also explained that all prefects
and the monitors would be formed into an Action Committee.71
This committee subsequently met on 15 June 1976 to consolidate strategies regarding
the planned march on 16 June 1976. Mazibuko’s involvement in the planning of
pre-16 June 1976 events highlights the participation and support of BCM and ANC,
through SASM. Although SASM leaders belonged to two camps – those who were
BCM aligned and those who were ANC aligned – common purpose prevented a
schism. Masetlha, SASM secretary in 1975/6, confirms that SASM specifically targeted
Phefeni Junior Secondary School:
At the end of my term as SASM secretary general, May 1976, we had a
conference where … a programme of action was drawn … to deal with
this apartheid and really … make sure that nationally … the programme
unfolds … [SASM] assigned a committee that was led by Motapanyane
to start an action group, which must begin in Soweto because at that time
we identified a school in Orlando West/Phefeni, which had been on strike
for about six weeks and [as our contact] Seth Mazibuko who was to go to
prison, the youngest in his generation to go to up that [relationship].72
Murphy Morobe describes how SASM first became involved in the boycott movement
that began at Orlando West Junior Secondary School (also known as Phefeni Junior
Secondary School):
Now this Orlando West Junior Secondary School [Phefeni Junior Secondary
School] was on boycott at the time, in 1976, I think early 1976. I think even
with Belle Higher Primary School in Orlando West there had been some
disturbances there … We were walking at Orlando, just past Orlando West
High School – neighbouring the junior secondary school, and we met
one comrade there, who … had just started teaching at Phefeni Junior
Secondary School, Nozipho Mxakathi, Joyce … Joyce Nozipho Diseko
[her married name] … then said to us: ‘What are you guys doing about
this?’ I can’t remember who I was walking with, whether it was Zweli or
Super … We decided to take this issue and introduce it onto the SASM
agenda for discussion. And once it got into the agenda, things then started
happening from there … With the first meeting that we called, we did not
even have to preach a lot to get people to come to attend the meeting where
we were going to discuss the response to this problem that was taking place
at Orlando West [Phefeni Junior] Secondary school.73
Sibongile Mkhabela describes the decision-making process by SASM as follows: ‘At
the DOCC on June 13th … this is when and where plans were made for a three-day
71 National Archives, Pretoria, Cillie Commission. SAB K345, vol. 148, part 19, testimony of Seth Mazibuko. See also court
evidence of Aubrey Mokoena, SAB, K345, vol. 148. On Mazibuko, see also H. Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a Nightmare’,
chapter 6.
72 Interview with Billy Masetlha, conducted by Ben Magubane and Greg Houston, 22 January 2004, SADET Oral History
Project.
73 Interview with Murphy Morobe.

The Soweto Uprising 341
boycott and demonstration on June 16. SASM did not really control the meeting, it
called it, it convened it … it created the platform … So we came together at DOCC
and it was at this meeting that we resolved to have a peaceful demonstration.’74
Masetlha, Morobe and Mkhabela avoid representing students as mere instruments of
some external will and power. An inclusive action committee formed at the beginning

of June 1976 and made up of primary, secondary and high school students co-
ordinated the student march on 16 June. Some of the members were Seth Mazibuko

(Phefeni Junior Secondary School), Isaiah Molefe (Belle Higher Primary School),
Tsietsi Mashinini and Murphy Morobe (Morris Isaacson High School), and David
Kutumela (Naledi High). The action committee consulted other organisations and
individuals of note in the community – people like Tom Manthata, Sammy Tloubatla
and Aubrey Mokena who had been teachers in some high schools in Soweto.
Events as they unfolded on 16 June 1976
The weekend before the march, a meeting was held between students and some
BPC members to finalise strategy. The student action committee plan was to stage
a peaceful march – with students from all over Soweto congregating at Orlando
Stadium and then proceeding to the regional offices of the Department of Bantu
Education to deliver a memorandum reflecting student grievances. The principal
route passed through the Orlando West precinct because of the symbolic role of
Phefeni Junior Secondary School. The students had decided at their meeting on 13
June that they would march by ‘any route leading to Phefeni Junior Secondary School’
to demonstrate their solidarity with students on strike. Once gathered at Phefeni
Junior Secondary School, on their way to the Orlando Stadium, Tsietsi Mashinini
would address the students. Morobe reminisces: ‘Our original plan was just to get
to Orlando West [Junior Secondary School], pledge our solidarity, sing our song and
then we thought that is it, we have made our point and we go home … Neither did
we expect the kind of reaction that we got from the police that day.’ 75
Most parents were unaware of plans for the demonstration. Elliot Ndlovu, the
father of 16-year-old Hastings Ndlovu, a Form 3 student at Orlando North, who was
killed, remembers:
On June 16 1976 I woke up as usual. I did not know anything, these kids
were too secretive. We were using some of the facilities at Emthonjeni Primary
School [in Orlando East] across the road because my school did not have a
photocopy machine and I was also the Maths teacher … When we were at
Emthonjeni I could see there was trouble in Orlando West … I said to one
chap, Shabangu, who was a principal at Zifuneleni School: ‘Man, do you see
this trouble?’76
74 Cited from the SABC television documentary, ‘Two Decades … Still June 16’, in Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘I saw a
Nightmare’; See also Mkhabela, Open Earth and Black Roses.
75 Cited from video interview of Murphy Morobe in the documentary, Soweto: A History by P. Bonner and Angus
Gibson.
76 Interview with Elliot Ndlovu conducted by S.M. Ndlovu.

342 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
In the morning his son had been acting strangely but Ndlovu took little notice and
was still not unduly worried when by 7.30 pm Hastings had not yet come home:
I said to myself, this chap leaves first for work, that is my other son Leslie;
then … he is the second to leave; then I am the last to leave. But that day
this chap [Hastings] is still around has not left for school in Mzimhlophe. I
ask him why he has not left for school already. He said: ‘No papa, I will be
moving out just now.’ And then I left him. When I got back home this chap
has not made fire [on the coal stove]. That was his job to make fire and he
will get pocket money every Friday so that he will go to the bioscope and so
on … But it is already … 7.30 pm.77
Colonel Kleingeld, the policeman who shot Hastings Ndlovu at point blank range
and was absolved of any responsibility, recalls: ‘I received a telephone message on
the evening of the 15th, there were rumours about school children who were going
to gather near a high school and from there apparently they intended to march to
Johannesburg on account of the language issue.’78
Hastings Ndlovu was in a procession of students on their way to Orlando Stadium.
He met his fate when the students met a police contingent led by Kleingeld at the
old Orlando West Bridge. These police were stationed at the Orlando [East] Police
Station. Kleingeld submitted the following testimony to the Cillie Commission:
As we came directly opposite the street where they were moving, they
immediately started throwing stones and moving towards us. At this stage
it was clear to me that they were aggressive. It would not be possible to try
to speak to them. Because I could see that the children appeared excited and
were behaving very aggressively, I deduced that the purpose of the march was
to destroy property and to endanger lives … They were now so close that I
was hit on the left thigh. The windscreen of my vehicle was shattered. The
crowd was approximately 50 metres from us. I threw three [tear gas] canisters
into the crowd in an attempt to stop their attack and disperse them. The tear
gas had no significant effect on the crowd and further stoning was let loose on
us … With the law on Riotous Assemblies in mind, I put both … my hands
up in the air and shouted ‘Wait’ and in the Bantu language ‘Khatle’ (sic). It
was unlikely that anybody would hear. Because the tear gas had no effect on
the crowd, it was now decided to launch a dog and baton attack to disperse
the crowd. The purpose was to push the crowd back until help arrived. The
police returned to the vehicle after the attack. I saw that one of the dogs had
been beaten to death. I also saw that we were completely surrounded. Stone
throwing came from all directions. The only solution to protect our lives and
property was to shoot warning shots in the air. A total of twenty rounds were
fired by me with the sten gun. I put five shots over the heads of the crowd. The
77 Ibid.
78 Cited from video interview of Kleingeld in the documentary, Soweto: A History by P. Bonner and Angus Gibson.

The Soweto Uprising 343
crowd was approximately 30-40 metres from us. I did not give an instruction
to fire. However, some police were shooting out of desperation. I myself never
saw that a person was dead or injured. I later heard that the leader or agitator
was indeed dead and removed by a vehicle.79
Kleingeld also said:
I came down from the western side towards the school (Orlando West Junior
Secondary) … I stopped my car approximately 100 metres away from the
students … I threw three canisters of teargas myself but only one canister
exploded … it was obvious to me that these chaps will do the same to us what
they have done to this dog of ours and I fired five shots in from and in the
direction of the crowd … the minute I moved trying to get into the car they
stormed us and then I decide to keep them away with a machine gun.80
Malcolm Klein, a black medical officer in the Casualty Department of Baragwanath
Hospital, remembers how at about 10.00 am he went to the doctor’s break room for a
welcome respite after attending to the morning rush of patients. A few moments later,
a nursing sister from the casualty department charged into the room with a look of
utter distress on her face. The nursing sister summoned him and rushed out of the
room:
I followed her and was met by a grisly scene: a rush of orderlies wheeling
stretchers bearing the bodies of bloodied school children into the resuscitation
room. All had the red ‘Urgent Direct’ stickers stuck to their foreheads that
allowed them to bypass queues and admission procedures … I stared in
horror at the stretcher bearing the body of a young boy in a neat school
uniform, a bullet wound to one side of his head, blood spilling out of a large
exit wound on the other side, the gurgle of death in his throat. Only later
would I learn his name: Hastings Ndlovu.81
After years of attending to mutilated victims with grisly injuries from assaults with all
manner of sharp and blunt objects, Klein thought that nothing could penetrate the
emotional barriers he had learned to erect. But he was not prepared for the sight of
uniformed school children riddled with bullets and ‘the terminal breaths of a youth
whose life I was powerless to save. Despite my medical training, I could do little more
than observe as life ebbed from his fragile frame.’82 With the exception of one child
with a bullet wound to the thigh, all the children had been shot above the belt.
79 See National Archives, Cillie Commission, for Kleingeld’s testimony. On testimonies by Elliot Ndlovu and Kleingeld see
also Pohlandt-McCormack, ‘I saw a Nightmare’, and the SABC television documentary, ‘Two Decades … Still June 16’.
80 Cited from video interview of Colonel Kleingeld in the documentary Soweto: A History by P. Bonner and Angus
Gibson. See Pohlandt-McCormack, ‘I saw a Nightmare’, on various inconsistencies in Kleingeld’s evidence.
81 M. Klein, ‘Hastings and Hector: Completing the Record of June 16th’, a record compiled and submitted to the Hector
Pieterson Museum in 2005. Klein now lives and works as a medical doctor in the USA and compiled his recollections
after a visit to the Hector Pieterson Museum. I thank Ali K. Hlongwane, the chief curator at the museum, for
forwarding Klein’s record to me.
82 Ibid.

344 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
Adding insult to injury, the police sought to prosecute those shot for ‘rioting’. According
to Klein, the police request to compile a list of all victims with bullet wounds admitted
to the hospital was relayed to the doctors by the hospital administrator in charge of
the Casualty Department. The doctors refused to comply. The police then demanded
that the admitting clerks compile the list and document the patient’s complaint on
their admitting chart. On the clerks’ suggestion, the doctors agreed that the clerks
would document the patient’s complaint as ‘abscess’, and the doctors would refer the
patients to the surgeons for ‘drainage of abscess’. In this way, Klein and colleagues
protected an unknown number of patients from being victimised twice by police
brutality.83
Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old student at a higher primary school in White City
and the symbol of the Soweto uprising, was among the first students to be shot dead
by the police at the gate of Orlando West High School. His sister, Antoinette Sithole,
recalls:
Actually where my school was [Thesele Secondary School in Central
Western Jabavu] … there’s a row of schools, it’s a lower primary, it’s a higher
primary, it’s a secondary school. So when you go that way and you’re going
… south, obviously you are going to pass the primary school. Hector was
in the primary school. I think it was just curiosity because I had to ask:
‘How did the children get involved because we were targeting high schools
and secondary schools?’ I was told that they were so curious, teachers tried
to stop them but they couldn‘t. So Hector joined me because he saw the
uniforms of the schools involved in the march. ‘My uncle is there, my sister
is there, why can I not join?’ Something like that.84
Antoinette and Hector joined the long march through Central Western Jabavu, White
City, Mofolo South, and Dube Village to Orlando West:
Pandemonium broke out after the marching students had reached Orlando
West. This was after the police had fired teargas into the crowd … and as I
was at the pavement, wondering what’s going on … Then I saw my brother
on the opposite pavement. And it looked as if he was from hiding, so he
was coming out to the streets. I was shocked but I said to myself: ‘What can
one do?’ … And then I thought he was looking at me. I waved. I got no
response. Then I said: ‘Hector!’ … He heard me and he came to me and I
said to him: ‘What do you want here?’ He was a very shy person. He just
smiled and I said to him: ‘You stop smiling and stay right here next to me
because I don’t understand what’s going on now.’ … When we hear a shot
we would run and hide ourselves … All those speeding cars, police cars,
dogs barking – we could hear that. But as soon as there’s no sound we would
come out from hiding.85
83 Ibid.
84 Interview with Antoinette Sithole conducted by Sifiso Ndlovu.
85 Ibid.

The Soweto Uprising 345
Antoinette further recalls her brother‘s shooting, and meeting Mbuyisa Makhubo for
the first time, as follows:
As we came out from hiding, I was scared and I said: ‘It seems this is going
to go on and on. So what can one do?’ I was thinking very hard and I forgot
about Hector … We came on foot. That’s another problem. Even if you want
to go home, how are you going to go home? So I was thinking about that
… I looked around … thinking maybe he’s still hiding. He’s small. Maybe
he’s still hiding, he’s still frightened … I told myself that I’m not going to
move from that place. He might come looking for me. Let me stay here.
While I was there, thinking about that, I could see a group of boys, about
three or four, at a distance … They were struggling and other students who
were hanging around on the pavement were going to that scene … I want
to go there but I don’t know how because I’m thinking of Hector that he
might look for me and not find me … I was very scared. It’s almost about
seven minutes and Hector hasn’t come out. My heart was beating so fast but
I tried to get hold of myself. As they came closer, the gentleman … whom
I knew later [as] Mbuyisa Makhubo … lifted … a body and, as he lifted it
higher, the first thing that I saw was the front part of Hector’s shoe. Then
I said: ‘Those shoes belong to Hector!’ I just said that and I just went to
the scene. Mbuyisa was already running. And on the way when we were
running I asked him: ‘Who are you?This is my brother, I’ve been looking
for him.’ I didn’t know how to explain myself. 86
After the murder of Hector Pieterson and Hastings Ndlovu, unarmed and furious
students continued pitched battles with the police, who were using live ammunition
and teargas. Parents had to rush home from work extremely worried about the safety
of their children.
The Cillie Commission report has been used here to reconstruct the events that
took place that day:
07h45: Col. J.A. Kleingeld, Station Commander of the Orlando Police Station
ordered all available policemen to be on stand-by. A Black sergeant who was
sent to inspect saw several groups of marchers. The march was proceeding
along Xorile Street from north to south. The sergeant notified the Orlando
Police Station that children were marching in the streets.
07h50: Brig. S.W. le Roux, Divisional Commissioner for Soweto, received information
concerning the marchers from the local Chief of Security and ordered six
station commanders to send out patrols.
08h00: Scholars carrying placards gathered at the Naledi High School, Tebello
Motapanyane led the student march to Orlando West past Thomas Mofolo
86 Interview with Antoinette Sithole. For information on Mbuyisa Makhubo see ‘Paths of Dignity’, interview with his
mother, Nombulelo Makhubo, The Star, 16 June 2001.

346 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
Secondary School and the Morris Isaacson High School. Scholars from the
Tladi, Moletsane and Molapo Secondary School also arrived and took part
in the protest march …
08h30: Col. Kleingeld requested reinforcements and issued revolvers and pistols
to his men. With 48 policemen, 40 of whom were Black, he went past the
Orlando Stadium to Uncle Tom’s Hall, where scholars had gathered … At
this stage, Brig. Le Roux realised that the situation was explosive. He had too
few men – between 300 and 350 – at his disposal to control the situation …
10h55: A West Rand Administration Board (WRAB) official, J.B. Esterhuyzen, was
driving along Khumalo Street (Orlando West) when he was attacked by
youths. He tried to escape from his car, but was surrounded by youths and
beaten to death. During this period delivery vehicles, government buildings
and cars were pelted with stones and set on fire. Trains were also attacked.
11h20: As word of police brutality spread around Soweto, WRAB was launching
a new sheltered employment workshop at Orlando East. The function
was attended by among others Dr L.M. Edelstein, the chief welfare officer.
Word reached them of the uprisings and Edelstein left by car for the youth
centre in Central Western Jabavu. By then his car had been damaged by
stones. He ran to his office and locked the door. Another WRAB official,
R. Hobkirk, was trapped in another office. The protesters forced their way
into Edelstein’s office, and dragged him outside. Hobkirk escaped and
was protected by members of the local community. Edelstein was beaten
to death. Two 18-year-old scholars, K. Dhlamini and L.J. Matonkonyane,
were later charged with the murder of Edelstein but acquitted.
Noon: Police refused white journalists entry into Soweto. They obtained information
about the uprising from their African colleagues.
12h15: An unsuspecting African social worker from the Department of Bantu
Administration and Development was hosting a white woman student
researcher. Students on Orlando West Bridge stopped their car and threatened
to assault the researcher. She was protected by well-disposed students and
placed in the care of a local clergyman.
12h30–1300: SABC camera crew and newsmen were allowed to accompany police
patrols in Soweto. Bottle stores at Phefeni/Orlando West were looted and
set on fire. WRAB buildings were also targeted. Police continued to use tear
gas and live ammunition to control the situation.
14h00: A large contingent of para-military police reinforcements arrived at intervals as
looting and arson continued with criminal elements/tsotsis taking advantage. A
senior police officer undertook an inspection flight by helicopter over Soweto.
People were scattered and gathering in several places. There was chaos; vast
parts of the area were under smoke, with buildings and cars on fire. Three

The Soweto Uprising 347
white medical doctors were trapped at Mofolo; a vehicle was sent to their
rescue.
14h30-17h00: As the burning and looting continued, wounded and shot people
continued streaming to Baragwanath Hospital and various local clinics.
Medical staff was overwhelmed. The police seemed to be shooting without
warning and indiscriminately. Looting, arson and violence continued. WRAB
offices and its bottle stores at Orlando West and Orlando East were set on
fire. So too were the WRAB offices in Meadowlands and Diepkloof. Arson
and looting continued at Nhlazane, Moroka/Rockville, Mofolo, Chiawelo,
Senaone, Zola, Moletsane and Jabulani. Post offices and the White City
library, the clinic in Senaoane and the Mapetla hostel were attacked. The
police arrested a number of people and more people were wounded and
killed. At 15h30 Colonel Theunis ‘Rooi Rus’ Swanepoel arrived in Soweto
with three officers and 58 policemen. They divided into two task forces. The
force under Swanepoel came up against the protesters around Uncle Tom’s
Hall. The crowd numbered about 4 000 and was dispersed by the police
who fired at them.
17h00-20h00: Violence, death and arson continued. Burnt motorcars are used to
block roads and railway tracks, as police used rail and road to gain access to
other parts of Soweto.

At 19h00 police were split into smaller groups, and assigned specific tasks. Major-
General W.H. Kotze, divisional commander for the Witwatersrand,

accompanied by a number of armed men, went by car from Moroka police
station to Jabulani police station, as radio communication between the two
stations was poor.
21h00: A meeting of the Soweto Parents’ Association was held in Dr Motlana’s
consulting rooms to discuss the events of the day. Along with Motlana,
Winnie Mandela, T. Motapanyane, a student, and R. Matimba, a teacher,
were among those present. Mandela suggested that a mass funeral for police
victims be held on Sunday 20 June. The service was later prohibited.
From the official records, the para-military police who had arrived in Soweto during
the day were given orders to shoot to kill; law and order was to be maintained ‘at
any cost’. The police shot dead another 11 people before that day. Ninety-three
more people were shot dead by police over the next two days. The Soweto Parents’
Association (SPA) called a meeting to discuss plans for a mass funeral for the victims
of the uprising and for providing financial aid to afflicted families. The SPA was
formed on 21 July 1976 as an umbrella organisation of representatives from SASM,
SASO, the Post Primary Principal’s Union, Black Social Workers Association
(BSWA), Black Community Programmes (BCP), YWCA, YMCA, Parents Vigilante
Committee, South African Black Women’s Federation and the Institute of Black
Studies. Almost all the representatives were residents of Soweto, even though some

348 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
of the organisations were national in character. The name changed to Black Parents’
Association (BPA), whose first secretary was Aubrey Mokoena; it embraced parents in
other affected areas such as Alexandra Township as protest expanded to various other
areas.87 The Johannesburg Magistrate’s office turned down BPA chairman Rev. Manas
Buthelezi’s application for permission for a mass funeral. Minister of Police Jimmy
Kruger declared: ‘It is known that black power organisations are behind the move to
hold the service.’ There was division in the BPA executive over whether to proceed in
spite of the ban. A compromise was reached in the decision to arrange one symbolic
funeral – that of Hector Pieterson. Noting the police disrespect, abuse of power and
interference in a ‘private’ family affair, Antoinette Sithole further recounts:
Hector was to be buried the next week and they said: ‘No ways, we are
still investigating.’ Hector died on the 16th of June 1976 but he was buried
on the 3rd of July because the police didn’t allow us to bury him. They
would give funny and stupid reasons, they would say: ‘We are waiting for
the station commander to do this and that.’ … They said to us we cannot
bury Hector, they would arrange the burial … Anyway, my grandmother
knew Afrikaans very well, so it was easy for her to talk to them … ‘No
ways, we have been waiting for so long, we tried to be patient with you but
in our culture we don’t do this. So you’ve killed my grandson, now you’re
giving us rules, it’s better to kill us all.’ That is how the day came for us
to bury Hector … In our culture, when somebody is dead, people would
come and sympathise, sing and whatever … So Winnie used to come, Dr
Buthelezi, Murphy Morobe, Dr Motlana, but late at night at about 10.00pm
or 12 o’clock. They knew that the police are gone now … They would come
and sort of arrange how the funeral is going to go about … The police who
were looking at my grandmother’s house, spying, … came and took me to
the police station and asked me questions about people who are coming
to the house. And I said: ‘We’ve got neighbours coming, they bring cakes,
they sympathise, they sit there with my mother and my grandmother, there’s
nothing more.’ So that was it!88
Mrs Matokolo, Hector’s grandmother, said the following about Hector: ‘Oh, he was
a naughty boy, like any boy at his age, but I knew one thing, though. He always came
back straight home from school.’89 But one day, on 16 June 1976, Hector Pieterson
did not come home.
Martha Ndlovu, Hastings Ndlovu’s mother, told the following story during
Hasting’s funeral:
[W]hen this child was born my hubby Elliott said ‘this boy is going to
be great in life’ and named the boy Hastings. But following our African

87 National Archives, Pretoria, SAB K345, vol. 148, testimony of Aubrey Mokoena..
88 Interview with Antoinette Sithole.
89 Drum, August 1976.

The Soweto Uprising 349
tradition I gave him a second name, Bongani, which means ‘be thankful’. I
remember very clearly that when his father named him Hastings, I jokingly
said that like Lord Hastings the boy will go down in history. It was a remark
I made lightly. Little did I realise then that one day that prediction would
be true … I take courage of the fact that Africa and Africans came forward
to console the Ndlovu family in their dark hour of grief. How he died is a
pride to all Africans. As a mother I searched for him until I found Hastings.
How beautiful was his corpse. Here’s what a mother’s lot becomes painful.
You look for a child thinking you will find him alive. You are told go to the
mortuary to identify his body. Oh Lord, help me forget these things. Teach
me to forgive. How long am I going to suffer through memories of the things
he used to say, how he used to read to me, how he used to talk, how he used
to complain about his pet hates in life? Let it not be long because every day
brings memories. Many years will pass before we mothers can forget about
our loved ones whose lives were cut short by bullets.90
Police killings were indiscriminate. On 17 June, Onica Mithi was walking towards
Baragwanath Hospital with her cousin, Martha, and with her eight-year-old
daughter, Lilly. They saw a group of youths running towards them. When Onica
heard shooting, she fled with her daughter and cousin. Onica saw Martha fall first,
and then Lilly. Martha had been shot in the leg. As Lilly was trying to help her, the
police also shot her. Onica says: ‘(Lilly) never gave the “Black power” sign and was
not part of a crowd when she was shot.’ The autopsy revealed that the bullet had
entered ‘the centre of her back and passed through her heart and right lung, leaving
an exit wound of 4 cm and 2 cm in her chest’.91
Staff at Baragwanath Hospital and at various health clinics around Soweto –
including private medical doctors such as Nthato Motlana – played a commendable
role in helping victims who had been shot and assaulted by the police. At Baragwanath,
the staff stayed at their posts while shots were fired from nearby roads and teargas
wafted into operating theatres. The commitment of nurses, kitchen staff, cleaners,
ambulance staff and porters was exemplary. According to a report in the Star
newspaper, ‘everybody behaved as if this sort of thing happened every day.’92
Thys De Beer, the Soweto circuit school inspector, remained unmoved by the grave
situation. He believed that the government should reinforce its hard-line approach
regarding Afrikaans. During a press interview on 18 June 1976, De Beer was quoted
as saying: ‘We thought that if we sat it out the strikes would peter out and parents
would force their children back to school … I told the school principals earlier, and I
still believe, that if we gave in to “student power” on this issue, they will in no time be
demanding something else.’

90 Drum, September 1976.
91 National Archives, Pretoria, SAB K 345, vol. 190, part 4, exhibit 129, testimony of Onica Mithi; SAP 3478, Autopsy
Report 2498/76, government mortuary, Johannesburg. See also Pohlandt-McCormack, ‘I saw a Nightmare’.
92 The Star, 18 June 1976, ‘Baragwanath (Hospital) Bears the Brunt’.

350 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
On 2 August the Students’ Action Committee held an emergency meeting. The
Soweto Students’ Representative Council (SSRC) was formed the same day, with
each high and secondary school represented by two members.93 Tsietsi Mashinini,
elected president, issued a memorandum declaring the SSRC the ‘voice of the people’,
as the authorities were refusing to negotiate with the BPA. The memorandum also
demanded the release of detained students. The SSRC enjoyed wide support and
student leaders who had been relatively unknown before the uprising became powerful
in Soweto. Alerting fellow students through the World to meet up in classrooms,
the SSRC mobilised large numbers of students to organise boycott and stay-away
campaigns amongst Soweto’s workers. From 2 to 4 August 1976 the SSRC convinced
two-thirds of Soweto’s work force to stay away from work in Johannesburg. In the
process, much damage was done and trains and busses were set alight. Also, a clash
ensued between the residents and hostel dwellers, whom the students had failed to

consult. The SSRC agreement with shebeen owners to close temporarily for a two-
week period led to a dramatic drop in Soweto’s crime rate. Students launched clean-
up campaigns to deal with the litter piling up in Soweto’s streets. The legitimacy

of the SSRC was acknowledged by adults in Soweto and by the press. They had
persuasive power – 52% of people in Soweto were under 25 and 63% under 30. Police
raided classrooms constantly in an attempt to capture student leaders. Despite some
dissatisfaction, most business sectors such as the shebeen, taxi and soccer industry
were willing to negotiate and co-operate with student leaders in their campaigns.
A period of mourning was declared over Christmas, when all of Soweto wore black
for one week and spent no money on gifts and celebrations. Sympathetic taxi drivers
drove Mashinini around Soweto on SSRC business.
The Soweto uprising spread to urban centres, rural areas and homelands. Students
throughout the country went on strike in solidarity with the Soweto students. Jimmy
Kruger, the Minister of Police, announced in the House of Assembly on 22 June 1976
that the pattern of the riots [uprisings] that spread to the East Rand, the West Rand,
the University of the North, University of Zululand and Alexandra Township, north
of Johannesburg, had followed that of Soweto. This pattern was to ‘destroy buildings
by ire, to plunder, to throw stones and objects, to set vehicles alight and attack their
own people’.94 By the end of February 1977 the official death toll, as recorded by the
Cillie Commission, stood at 575 – including 75 coloured, two white, two Indian
and 496 African people. Many areas were affected including 22 townships in the
Transvaal, 16 areas around Cape Town, four townships in Port Elizabeth and nine
other towns.95

93 The World, 3 August 1976, ‘Pupils Form New Body’; See also S.M. Ndlovu, Counter-memories of June 1976.
94 Cape Times, 22 June 1976; The World, 17 June 1976, ‘Riot – Kruger Speaks’.
95 Bonner, ‘The Soweto Uprisings’. Statistics are provided by the Cillie Commission. These figures are not cast in stone
and should be revised by historians and others.

The Soweto Uprising 351
PART 2: ALEXANDRA AND KATHORUS96

By Noor Nieftagodien
Although Soweto was undoubtedly the epicentre of the 1976 uprising, the brutal
response by the police to the students’ peaceful march ignited a general revolt across the
country. After 16 June one township after another engaged in open revolt. It took only
one day for students from Alexandra to organise solidarity action with their comrades in
Soweto and for the uprising to engulf other townships in the vicinity of Soweto.
Initially the revolt took the form of solidarity marches with the students of Soweto
but quickly transformed into more generalised struggles against Bantu education and
apartheid. There were many similarities in the form and political content of the uprising
in different townships: they were mainly student-led; symbols of apartheid, especially
beer halls, became the primary targets; police repression was severe, which resulted
in large numbers of casualties; and Black Consciousness emerged as the unifying
ideology of the student movement. In addition, the introduction of Afrikaans was a
common immediate cause of student discontent. The effects of the structural crisis
of Bantu education were in evidence everywhere. Overcrowding, lack of resources,
unqualified teachers and the poor quality of education characterised township schools
and were among the principal underlying causes of student discontent everywhere.
Although the struggles in other townships generally copied the template established
by the Soweto uprising, there were also local variations that were shaped by local
actors and circumstances. Possibly the main difference between Soweto and other
townships was that the struggles in these other places neither reached the same levels
of intensity nor were as protracted as in Soweto. The level of organisation, the role of
workers and hostel dwellers and the role of the police also varied significantly across
the townships.
Alexandra
More than any other township on the Witwatersrand, Alexandra, some 16 kilometres
north of Johannesburg central business district and between 30 and 40 kilometres
from Soweto, exhibited the worst signs of urban decay. Deteriorating conditions in
township schools, including massive overcrowding, lack of basic facilities and poor
standards of teaching had reached their zenith in Alexandra, where education was
in a particularly parlous state as a result of the state’s decision to remove families
from the township to places like Diepkloof and Meadowlands in Soweto. There
were 13 schools and only one secondary school, the Alexandra Secondary School,
which only went up to Standard 8 (or Junior Certificate). Leepile Taunyane, who was
the principal of Alexandra Secondary School until 1975, believes the Department
of Bantu Education never intended to introduce matriculation because the Catholic
School already catered for matric classes. 97 The Catholic School could not meet the
96 Kathorus: acronym for Katlehong, Thokoza, and Vosloorus.
97 Interview with Leepile Taunyane, 27 October, 2003.

352 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
growing demand for matric, however, which meant that beyond Junior Certificate
most Alexandra students commuted to schools in Soweto and other nearby townships
such as Thembisa. The itinerant life-style of Alexandra youth enabled them to absorb
disparate influences and to spread these among youth throughout the Witwatersrand.
The Department of Bantu Education allowed Alexandra Secondary School to have a
matric class only when the Catholic School relocated to Diepkloof.
Overcrowding was most endemic in Alexandra schools. Victor Kgobe was at
Mazambane Primary School in the early 1970s and says the school was too small
to accommodate all the students. They used a number of satellites sites, he says,
and ‘identified church sites’.98 When Alexandra Secondary School moved into new
premises in 1960, it experienced a massive influx of students. Mr Taunyane remembers:
‘As soon as we got to the new building in 1960 the school grew phenomenally. It
just grew and grew and I suppose even those fellows who had been sitting at home
and not getting any accommodation at schools just decided, well there’s space now
somewhere, there’s a school and I am going back.’ 99 By the early 1970s the school was
experiencing terrible overcrowding, with 60 students in a class. As a result, the Form
1 classes were held in a hall at the Alexandra Stadium and additional teachers were
employed at the school’s expense.

Alexandra schools were also in varying states of disrepair and terribly under-
equipped. Victor Kgobe explains: ‘We didn’t have desks. Most of us actually sat on

the floor. There were a lot of broken windows; they were not being fixed … There
were not enough toilets … And we basically didn’t have laboratories.’ Students also
resented what they perceived to be a conservative and ‘top-down’ governing structure
for education in the township. At school level, ‘the principal will instruct the teachers
and the teachers will basically instruct the students’.100 According to Sylvester Ndaba,
who became a key figure in the 1976 uprising in Alexandra, student activists despised
the Alexandra School Board:
Look, it was a typical Bantu Education set up where the principal wielded
power … There was one School Board that controlled the entire Alex … Mr.
Khoza was the chairman of the Alexandra School Board. Now remember
if you are the chairperson of the then School Board that meant you were
working for the system, you see. And if you work for the system, we as
the youth saw you as an impimpi – a sell out … It was not elected, it was
appointed by the government … They would appoint certain people within
the community to serve as School Board Members. And those School Board
Members were supposed to be the representatives of … the parents of Alex.
But no, it was the other way round; they were singing the masters’ voice,
you see. They would perpetrate and perpetuate these systems as far as the

98 Interview with Victor Kgobe, 21 May, 2003.
99 Interview with Leepile Taunyane.
100 Interview with Victor Kgobe.

The Soweto Uprising 353
apartheid regime was concerned. So they were hated – let me tell you they
were basically hated.101
These views reflected the growing radicalisation of students, many of whom had
come under the influence of Black Consciousness (BC) that by the early 1970s was
having great impact on young activists. Sipho Kubekha was aware of BC supporters
at school and was impressed by prominent BC leaders. At the time, however, he was
‘not very political. I was just an ordinary person.’ Joe Manana first became involved
in the youth organisation of the Lutheran church; his mother wanted him to become
a priest. He learned about BC and with other supporters set about not only, he says,
[to] conscientise people politically but also to politicise people in terms of …
having confidence to say that you know this is their country. They should
take the risk of being themselves because if you are self-reliant you are in
a position to be creative. I was not a student by then but I was lucky to
mix with students. I managed to go to their conferences now and then in
Hammanskraal [and] in the University of the North.102
These young activists immersed themselves in Black Consciousness literature and
debated key texts by Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and
Malcolm X. Wally Serote, a leading poet of the BC era who had been raised in
Alexandra, also inspired Alexandra’s growing BC adherents, who often organised
cultural activities to conscientise the community. Prior to 1976, however, there was not
much focus on building local organisations, partly due to the relatively small number
of activists involved in overt political work and, partly because of the prevailing
climate of fear. June 1976 marked a decisive turning point in the focus and fervour of
political activists.
On the afternoon of June 17, a few students erected a barricade on 6th Avenue.
This isolated incident gave little forewarning of the impending eruption in Alexandra.
The following day Alexandra witnessed one of the most intense and bloody days of
the 1976 revolt. Once again excerpts from the Cillie Commission report have been
used to provide graphic details of that day’s dramatic events:
08h00: In Wynberg, looting and arson occurred at Indian shops, and at the WRAB
inspectorate offices and bottle stores. Motor vehicles were attacked and set
on fire.
10h00: Bottle stores and other shops had been looted by the rioters … About 150
men and women took part in the looting. The police opened fire on the
looters. The six wounded and the four dead were all between the ages of 16
and 25 years.

101 Interview with Sylvester Ndaba, 9 July 2003.
102 Interview with Joe Manana, 7 June 2003.

354 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
10h30: Police patrols encountered unruly behaviour everywhere. Groups of people
were milling about, the Black Power salute was given, and a defiant attitude
was adopted towards the police.
10h59: A shot was fired at the official motor car of Col. Slabbert.
11h05: About 200 Black men and women and tsotsis, together with a number of
Coloured men and women, attacked Green’s fish-and-chips shop … The
police were commanded to open fire and shot dead a fleeing Black man and
woman.
11h55: About 200 Blacks and Coloureds … stormed two shops in Vasco da Gama
Avenue.
12h55: During the afternoon, the police received reports that Blacks travelling
around Alexandra in motor vehicles were inciting others to violence.
13h00: A number of vehicles, including PUTCO buses, were set on fire.
16h07: The Mimosa Café in London Street was looted and set on fire by youths.
The police had to threaten the looters with rifle fire five times before they
beat a retreat … The police vehicles in the street were pelted with stones.
16h23: A group of about 150 looters, who were giving the Black Power salute, taunted
the police in Selbourne Avenue. Four of them were arrested. They were found
to be in possession of a dagger, a hatchet, a knife and a knob-kierie.103
For Khulu Radebe, who was doing Standard 4 at Alexandra’s Pholosho Primary, 18
June 1976, was to become a turning point in his life:
Colleagues hooked me into the struggle, unaware that I was going to be
involved my entire life in the struggle, you know, young as I was. I remember
that day when we were taken out of our classrooms. We moved from 12th
Avenue … I remember one police Valiant … that was used by two white
policemen. I remember I threw a stone … Our intention was to go straight …
but we decided to go … back to 1st Avenue … The young ones were told to go
home … but we were anxious to be part of it, you know … My parents were
looking for me … And then after that there was lot of police in Alexandra.
But I remember the first incident where the police started to shoot; it was at
the beer hall – at 3rd Avenue … There was a church there, Lutheran Church,
[where] six of us were hiding … We said: ‘No, there’s this beer hall in 7th
Avenue … No one is guarding it, you see, let’s go burn it.’ So while we were
throwing stones there suddenly there was lot of people, I don’t know where
they came from. Then we ran to 12th Avenue. There was a Chinese shop
there at the corner of Selbourne and 12th Avenue, so it was looted.104
103 Cillie Commission, vol. 2, 31–5.
104 Interview with Khulu Radebe, 4, May 2003.

The Soweto Uprising 355
As soon as the students embarked on their march, the police despatched two platoons,
under the command of Colonel G. Slabbert, to the township. Until midnight
Alexandra was engulfed in an orgy of violence such as Radebe describes. In one
incident on Selbourne Street, the police opened fire on a group of 150, some of whom
were looting a bottle store, killing four and injuring several others. Next to Soweto,
Alexandra experienced the most violence from the police, who admitted to killing 29,
making 18 June the most violent day in the township’s history. The following day a
further five bodies were found in different parts of the township. Selwyn Talaza, the
son of an Anglican Church minister, and Japie Mankwe Vilankulu, a BC exponent,
were among those killed.105 Police brutality in Alexandra was so severe that three riot
policemen were charged with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. It was
alleged during their trial that they had dragged people from cars, assaulted them and
tore up their permits, and then demanded R25.106
Demonstrations continued on Saturday 19 June, although with considerably less
violence on the part of the police. There were also fewer participants on the marches.
As a result of the weekend, schools could not be used as centres of mobilisation and

parents exerted some restraint on the angry youth. Everyone appeared to be shell-
shocked by the intensity of the violence of the previous day, especially the severity of

police reaction to the demonstrations.107
As in Soweto, students in Alexandra first attacked the obvious symbols of apartheid
such as beer halls and the WRAB offices. The demonstrations were remarkable also
for the unity displayed between African and coloured students, even though they
attended segregated schools. Some of the marchers turned their attention to looting
shops on First Avenue, as Radebe testifies. This aspect of the demonstrations assumed
racial overtones when Indian and Chinese-owned shops were attacked. Several of
these estblishments were burnt down. Demonstrations and marches continued in the
following weeks but on a smaller scale.
When the schools reopened after the mid-year break, Soweto and Alexandra
emerged as pivotal sites of the students’ struggles. It soon became evident that a very
close relationship had developed between the student leaders of the two townships.
The bonds between residents of the two areas had grown immeasurably because of the
forced removals and, as has also been mentioned, many Alexandra students attended
high schools in Soweto – especially in Diepkloof and Orlando, which were at the
heart of the Soweto revolt – and were directly involved in the Soweto revolt. Some
of them invariably became leading figures in the student movement in Alexandra.
On the whole, however, students in Soweto were much better organised than their
comrades in Alexandra. By contrast, Alexandra activists found it more difficult to
replicate the organisational successes of their counterparts, the township network of
SSRCs as well as organised support from parents. Alexandra student leaders were
unable to sustain the same level of mobilisation as in Soweto.
105 Weekend World, 4 July 1976.
106 The World, 15 March 1977.
107 Cillie Commission, vol. 1, 152-3.

356 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
The second half of the year was marked by student attempts to organise themselves
and to sustain a level of community mobilisation. July was relatively quiet but August
witnessed a new upsurge of political activism. The SSRC called for a stay-away on
4 August to demand the release of students who had been detained. The strike was
reasonably well supported in Alexandra.108 Over the following six days the township
again experienced an upsurge in student action directed mainly at the police, schools
and PUTCO. On 6 August PUTCO decided to withdraw its service from the township.
Throughout this period regular attempts were made to burn down schools.
The uprising in Alexandra reached a climax on 9 August. Alexandra High
School and Kadide Primary School were set on fire. The Cillie Commission report
summarised the events on that day: ‘Rioting was rife throughout the residential area.
Buses and police vehicles were pelted with stones; rioters erected barricades in the
streets, intimidation of workers was general.’ When the SSRC called a second strike
for the 23-25 August, few workers from Alexandra heeded the call. Similarly, the
strike on 7 September was poorly supported. The uprising had clearly run out of
steam among Alexandra residents.109
The state had also regained some measure of control over the township and was
confident enough to launch a massive ‘mopping up operation’. On 13 September,
the police swooped on suspected student activists and striking workers. The World
reported the police crackdown as follows:
It is estimated that over 900 people in Alexandra were arrested yesterday
in what police described as a ‘clean-up’. The police launched a crackdown
on children and adults found in the township during the day. They went

from house to house looking for people not at work or school. The house-
to-house search followed the stay-at-home strike in Soweto yesterday … A

police spokesman said the massive arrests were intended to ‘clean up the
township of loafers’.110
An attempt to mobilise support for a five-day stay-away at the end of October enjoyed
very little success. Similarly, the campaign by some students to disrupt end-of-year
examinations failed to muster significant support. Unlike their counterparts in
Soweto, most students in Alexandra wrote the final exams.111
A group of student leaders then began to make an effort to build a sustainable
student organisation in the township. At about the end of 1976 or the beginning of
1977, the Alexandra Students League (ASL) was established to co-ordinate student
struggles in the township. The first executive of the ASL included Sylvester Ndaba
(president), Hlome Mbatha (chairperson), Steve Tau, Jackie Seroke, Zebelon
Cebekhulu and Matoto Mtjalela. There was also a woman activist named Eunice
because, Sylvester Ndaba explains, ‘We had to have a woman amongst us – a girl.
108 The World, 4 August 1976.
109 Cillie Commission, vol. 1, 152-3.
110 The World, 14 September 1976.
111 The World, 6 January 1977.

The Soweto Uprising 357
Even now it was not a concept like today – addressing the gender issues. But it was
important that she was there because she was ferocious and very, very vocal.’112
Sylvester Ndaba was involved in student politics in both townships. At the time he
was a pupil at Orlando North, the school attended by Hastings Ndlovu, who was
killed with Hector Pieterson, Ndaba was commuting between the two townships and
effectively acting as a point of contact for activists from both areas.
The leaders of the ASL set themselves a few objectives in early 1977. The first was
simply to avoid detention ‘not to get picked up by the system’:
[B]ecause the easiest way to kill an organisation, according to the system at
the time, was [to] nab the ringleaders [and] the whole thing would fizzle out.
So we needed to sustain the organisation – in sustaining the organisation we
had to look after its founder members. So we then decided we’re not going
to call it the Alexandra Students Representative Council (ASRC) because we
had the Soweto Students Representative Council. And we also knew that the
SSRC was being infiltrated by the system – the informers within the system.
So the moment we called it the ASRC we would have to be subsumed by the
SSRC and then expose ourselves. We were going to call it the ASL.113
The ASL also tended to operate like a political party. Membership was tightly
controlled and restricted:
Before you joined us … we investigated you for 14 days … Surveillance in the
true sense of the word! In the morning where do you go? We would exchange,
we would go into shifts … between three and four hours … We would know
your girlfriend, we would know your hobbies, we would know everything
about you. After fourteen days – at the time we thought we can establish a
pattern of who you are, who are your friends, your contacts, etc. – we would
then accept or reject you based on the findings of the committee.114
Ideologically the ASL aligned itself to Black Consciousness. It viewed its major task
as being to conscientise people, along BC lines. Sylvester Ndaba recalls:
The slogan ‘black is beautiful’ … ‘I’m black and proud’, was prominent in all
our speeches … The one person that … articulated this very well was Steve
Biko, with his BCM concepts. To us it was not a concept, it was something
that you had to live through … You have to see that you’re black and you’ve
got to understand that it’s not a mistake. And we’re not going to be playing
… docile.115
The leaders of the ASL, like student activists everywhere, came under pressure to leave
the country and to join one of the armed wings of the liberation movements. Police
112 Interview with Sylvester Ndaba.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid.

358 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
harassment and the prospect of detention made exile an increasingly viable option for
student activists. Internally, however, ASL leaders decided after considerable debate
that the time was not yet right for armed insurrection. Ndaba further explains: ‘The
SAP … had all the necessary power, money, [and] armoury you can think of. So
we knew from the beginning that we can’t take them on. And the good thing about
having realised that we can’t take them on militarily [was that] we did not have …
to delude ourselves that we are not afraid.’ In ASL thinking, the main task was to
build organisations, mobilise internal resistance and prepare the ground for future
insurrection. As Ndaba explains:
The guys that left need to come back and we have to prepare the ground
for them because now remember the whole thing was spiralling. Now guys
were leaving the country like it was getting out of fashion. People were being
killed, people disappeared and we were saying we need to keep the fort, the
fires burning at home, so that the guys that had gone out … should know
we’re waiting, we’re preparing the environment.116
The ASL sought the support of key adult figures in the township, especially among
church leaders and teachers. Priests such as A.P. Moleleki (Methodist), Ndaba
(Lutheran) and Sam Buti (NGK) and teachers such as Sipho Zunga and Mrs Noge
were regularly consulted. So, too, was Marjorie Manganyi, a prominent community
worker. These adults supported their broad objectives to conscientise and uplift their
community. Moleleki was especially viewed as a staunch ally and a ‘firebrand’ who
organised discussions at his place on questions such as ‘nation-building’. The student
leaders also made a special effort to win the support of adults by attending church
regularly – most of them had a strong religious upbringing – and by initiating socially
responsibly campaigns. Ndaba says:
We cleaned out the streets of the children at night, particularly the nightclubs
… because we were losing a lot of girls to the nightclubs and a lot of crime
was happening at these nightclubs. So obviously we were not popular
with nightclub owners and shebeen owners. And we went to them … to
say: ‘Look, we are having a serious [moral] problem.’ It was important to
conscientise the people in praising them for who they are. I remember we
wrote poems. Jackie Seroke was part of the guys that wrote the poems. It
was more about conscientisation and playing a social role. We wanted the
parents to know what was happening.117
One of its key social upliftment projects was to raise funds for the crèches on 2nd and
6th Avenues; cultural shows were organised at King’s Cinema for the same purpose.
The ASL in 1977 focused on the organisation of a commemoration service for the
victims of June 1976. A number of clergy, particularly Sam Buti and A.P. Moleleki,
116 Ibid.
117 Ibid.

The Soweto Uprising 359
became involved in planning the event. They wrote a letter to the authorities
requesting permission to hold the service. The state was extremely nervous about the
commemorations and refused permission. More seriously, the security police began
to target ASL leaders. In the weeks before 16 June 1977, several attempts were made
to detain ASL activists. In one instance Steve Tau was shot at when the police found
him at his girlfriend’s place. He was lucky to escape with this life. Two days before
the commemoration, the police launched a massive manhunt for ASL leaders. The
secretary of the school board, popularly known as Sis Lindi, warned them of the
impending police swoop and a few managed to find hiding places. Unfortunately, Tau
and Hlome decided to stay at their homes and were arrested. Sylvester Ndaba eluded
the police by hiding at the home of Hilda Ramawela, a teacher at Ekukhanyisweni.
The shocking detentions did not stop the ASL from going ahead with the
commemoration. The state had banned public meetings and the organisers of the
Alexandra commemoration were told they could not hold an outdoor meeting. The
Reverend Moleleki decided to hold the commemoration service in his church and
placed loud speakers outside the church.
The ASL’s success earned it constant police harassment. In July, Steven Tau was
again arrested, this time with another school comrade, Isidore Mbatha. Alexandra
‘erupted into demonstrations’ when students got wind of the detention of their
colleagues. Hundreds of students marched through the township until the police
dispersed them. Several demonstrators were arrested.118
The ASL leaders had hoped that their involvement in various upliftment projects
would deflect police attention from their political activities. Despite efforts to evade
the police, they constantly faced the prospect of detention. As a result, some left
Alexandra while others decided to leave the country altogether. Jackie Seroke moved
to Thembisa, where he continued his political activity as a PAC member. Sylvester
Ndaba relocated to Diepkloof. The loss of key leaders adversely affected the ASL but
did not lead to its demise. From late 1977 the ASL was to play a leading role in the
campaign to stop the relocation of residents to the City Deep Hostel, which laid the
foundation for the Save Alexandra Campaign.

Part 3: Thembisa

By Noor Nieftagodien and Tshepo Moloi
Thembisa,119 about fifteen kilometres from Alexandra and 40–50 kilometres from
Soweto, was established in 1957 as a ‘model’ township for Africans employed in
Kempton Park and its environs. Until the early 1970s the township experienced
little political resistance. It was more renowned for its criminal activities. Afrikaans,

118 The World, 27 July 1977.
119 Thembisa, not Tembisa, is the correct spelling of this residential area.

360 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
introduced at Thembisa High School in 1973, began to shift the focus of some youth
to politics. According to Figo Madlala, who was in Form I at the time, the Afrikaans
trigger was pulled in 1973:
It was called Die Landbou. The teacher who taught us Landbou was Mr
Molala. First time in the class then he asked us: ‘Wat is grond?’ … [H]ow
do you explain what is soil in Afrikaans? And communication was difficult
because you have to respond in Afrikaans. Someone said, ‘Die grond is die
ding!’ (The soil is this thing) [pointing to the ground]. Others said, ‘Die
grond is bietjie things’ (Soil is these small things). But we could not explain
‘wat is grond?’ And that was the first class we had in Landbou. We had to say
what the textbook was saying about ‘wat is grond?’ You were reading what
you don’t understand.120
Students found Afrikaans frustrating and they soon objected. ‘In fact, there was a
dismal failure at the end of the first quarter,’ Madlala continues. ‘And we complained
that we want to change the subject to something else because we don’t understand it.
They then changed the language from Afrikaans to English in the second quarter.’
At this stage in Thembisa, opposition to Afrikaans was not clearly linked to Bantu
education or apartheid. This was to change in 1976. At the start of that year Afrikaans
was introduced as the medium of instruction for several subjects, such as geography
(Aardrykskunde) and mathematics (Wiskunde),

121 following a decision taken at a
meeting attended by the Transvaal inspectors in January 1974.122 Teboho Tsenase,
who was in Form II in 1976, remembers the disquiet caused by the introduction of
Afrikaans: ‘In 1975 everything was done in English but the rumour had reached us
to say Afrikaans is coming. And in 1976 we actually did Geography in Afrikaans. And
we were told that … by the time we reach matric everything will be in Afrikaans. That
really pissed everybody.’123
The same thing that happened at Tsenase’s school, Thembisa High School, happened
at Boitumelong Senior Secondary School in 1976.124 ‘You know because Afrikaans was
seen as an oppressive language, generally people hated it,’ a Boitumelong student at the
time, Greg Malebo, says. ‘In fact, the majority in our class did not really want Afrikaans.
The argument was that … it was not an international language.’125
Student opposition was led by a group of young Black Consciousness activists,
who became involved in BCM in 1975. Mongezi Maphuthi belonged to this group
and remembers that,

120 Interview with Mike ‘Figo’ Madlala, conducted by Tshepo Moloi, 7 September 2004, Kempton Park, SADET Oral
History Project.
121 Interview with Teboho Tsenase, conducted by Tshepo Moloi, 9 June 2004, Tembisa; interview with Greg Malebo,
conducted by Tshepo Moloi, 14 October 2004, Tembisa, SADET Oral History Project.
122 Hyslop, ‘Social Conflicts over African Education’, 468.
123 Interview with Teboho Tsenase.
124 Interviews with Greg Malebo and Mongezi Maphuthi, conducted by Tshepo Moloi, 28 September 2004, Thembisa,
SADET Oral History Project.
125 Interview with Greg Malebo.

The Soweto Uprising 361
As early as 1975 we started to be involved together with Sipho Mzolo in
Alexandra … We attended the BC meetings, even some funerals, and the
PAC events. I remember there was an [event held in honour] of Sobukwe
in Alexandra, we went there. We did not have an ideology; we accepted
everything that was brought by black people.126
BCM attracted several adherents in high schools, among students and teachers, who
introduced an alternative syllabus that highlighted the history of African resistance.
Malebo remembers the BC influence some of his teachers imparted:
The new guys came, Ralph Mothiba and Mr Masiza, who taught us
English. This was the new breed of teachers who were in SASO. During
History lessons Ralph Mothiba would talk about African Unity that Kwame
Nkrumah spoke about, Patrice Lumumba … Ralph Mothiba really played
an important role in one’s political conscientisation.127
Some students also had contact with ANC figures in Soweto, although these connections
were not always explicit. Madlala was not even aware of this at the time:
In 1975 we were starting to … discuss political issues … I was never told that
those were ANC people that we were meeting. They never mentioned that
they were ANC. But they were giving us some kind of political education
and analysis. We learned the history of our struggle from 1906: Bambatha
Rebellion; the formation of the ANC Youth League; Luthuli; the Freedom
Charter; the formation of the PAC; and the pass campaigns. Our link was
with people who were linked to Joe Gqabi in Soweto. We were together with
people like Murphy Morobe and others. They were also linked in some way
with Joe Gqabi. In Thembisa there was Brunza, Popola, there was Mike,
there was Ben Mhlongo, Eddie Dube and Brian Mazibuko.128
These political formations remained confined to a small band of activists. The rest
of the students, according to Madlala, did not anticipate June 1976. The day after
Soweto erupted into open rebellion, however, students in Thembisa moved into
action. Malebo narrates:
I remember we read in the Rand Daily Mail about what was happening in
Soweto and said this is it. There were people who were in the senior classes
who took up the leadership … and there were teachers who were instigating
… We had Kenneth Phasane, Eddie Dube, Ngoako Ramathlodi, Brian
Mazibuko and Figo Madlala. We were saying we’re affected by Afrikaans as
well … The resolution was that we are going to march. A march was called on
Thursday. And during that meeting we had somebody from Soweto, I think,
it was Dan Montsisi. And then a committee was formed that was supposed to
126 Interview with Mongezi Maphuthi.
127 Interview with Greg Malebo.
128 Interview with Mike Figo Madlala, 5 November 2004.

362 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
direct the march. I’m talking about Kenneth Phasane, Eddie Dube – others
I can’t remember. The leadership then took a decision that we should write
placards. They said we should do the same as we saw in the Rand Daily Mail
people holding placards written: ‘Away with Afrikaans’.129
Students marched from Thembisa High School to Boitumelong Senior Secondary
School, located in Moriting section. On the way to Boitumelong, however, the
students were confronted by the police. Madlala recalls:
We were somewhere in Mashimong section when we were disrupted. The
police tear-gassed us and unleashed dogs on us. Students started running
helter-skelter … We got into a toilet. I’m sure we were about 15, if not 20
– in one toilet. It was easy to go in but when we had to get out we couldn’t
because we were pressing the door out.130
The disruption of the march transformed the demonstration into open rebellion, as
Malebo elaborates:
Then we went wild. It was like this was organised, and I don’t think it was
… I remember, on my own, I went to a bottle store in Leralla – next to
Leralla Station – which was owned by what was known as the East Rand
Development Boards. I must be honest no one really told me to go there,
but I knew that it was the symbol of apartheid. And we came to learn that
others had gone to a bottle store in Sedibeng section. It was spontaneous. So
we then burnt the bars [and] bottle stores and we took some straights. For
the first time we got drunk.131
They attacked the beer halls because the ‘municipality had erected a lot of beer halls’,
Tsenase says, adding: ‘We saw that our fathers on Fridays instead of going home they
were going there … to spend our monies there on drunkenness, instead of helping
us get free.’132
The mood had changed dramatically. Students were no longer only opposing
Afrikaans but were now resisting Bantu education and apartheid in general.
Confrontations with the police also became more intense, as Madlala explains: ‘From
the 18th the language changed … People were now talking about Bantu education
being a bad system. And as well they were talking about apartheid system. You know,
to say we are oppressed as a nation.133
The Cillie Commission reported that
at 10:00 about 400 pupils from Boitumelong Secondary School fell in with
pupils from Thembisa High School, who refused to attend classes … They

129 Interview with Greg Malebo.
130 Interview with Mike Figo Madlala, 5 November 2004.
131 Interview with Greg Malebo.
132 Interview with Teboho Tsenase.
133 Interview with Mike Figo Madlala, 5 November 2004.

The Soweto Uprising 363
began marching in the direction of the Leralla Bottle Store. According to
witnesses some of the protest marchers had at this stage already armed
themselves with stones, staves, knives, etc. By the time the marchers reached
the bottle store, their numbers had swollen to some 2 000 persons. Part of the
crowd smashed the windows of the store and tried to set the place on fire.
According to the Cillie Commission, at 12:00 a group of rioters attacked a café
belonging to a Portuguese man at the Oakmoor Railway Station and tried to set the
owner’s vehicle on fire. He fired shots at the attackers and later C. Lekaba and L.
Ntaposa were found dead at the scene. Two others died in hospital – C. Khoza died
in Olifantsfontein on the same day and E. Mabye died the next day. A train was also
attacked at Thembisa Railway Station. At the end of the day it was reported that five
people had been shot dead by the police.
Student activists were initially surprised by the rapid escalation of the conflict in
Thembisa but quickly regrouped. Between 17 and 20 June some students from the
two high schools, Thembisa and Boitumelong, met to launch the Thembisa Students
Representative Council (TSRC), following the example of their Soweto counterparts.
Madlala recalls the leading role the SSRC played in the formation of the TSRC:
On the 18th we launched our TSRC … We requested a classroom at
Ndulwini School, that’s where the TSRC was actually launched. The
people that conducted the elections, for instance, with regards to our TSRC
were Dan Montsisi and Tsietsi Mashinini [both members of the SSRC].
Some of those elected to the executive of the TSRC were Elliot Dhlomo,
Ben Mhlongo, Absolom Mazibuko, Brian Mazibuko, myself.134
Madlala says student leaders from Soweto ‘briefed us on how we have to form it. The
people that informed us were Dan Montsisi, Murphy Morobe and Yster. They came
to Thembisa more than once. I was the contact – the link.’135
The TSRC set itself a few modest objectives. In the first instance, it aimed ‘to
take issues of students, their grievances to the principal. The body had to represent
the aspirations of the students.’ Significantly, student leaders were careful not to ‘be
highly political in spite of the fact that it was formed within the turmoil’. This position
demonstrated a tactical awareness, designed to win the TSRC maximum support
from the students, as well as not to attract unnecessary attention from the authorities.
The police were in no mood, however, to tolerate the existence of organised student
bodies. The TSRC suffered a serious blow only four days after its formation when
the police arrested hundreds of students, including most student leaders, as Madlala
further explains:
Around the 21st we … meant to have a meeting at school and the police
encircled us. About 300 of us were arrested. And some were discharged.
Then 105 of us were charged with public violence, alternatively arson. Our
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid.

364 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
cases were then divided into three. Some were charged with three public
violence; some with two public violence; and others were charged with only
arson. If you were charged with public violence they would always put an
alternative charge of arson. So I don’t know what happened to it (TSRC)
after we were arrested. But it did not exist long. 136
As a result, the Thembisa uprising dissipated almost as quickly as it had flared up.
Resistance was reduced to sporadic acts of violence, such as the bombing of the office
of the principal of Sedibeng Primary School on 27 July. When the student leaders were
released on 3 August they immediately attempted to mobilise. Madlala recounts:
We went back to school and the leadership had all gone underground. We
then established the leadership again. Amongst those that I remember
that we elected were myself, Brian Mazibuko and Elliot Dhlomo – just
to keep momentum amongst the students. We addressed the students at
school again. There were students attending classes while we were having a
meeting. Then it was resolved in that meeting that we are going to take them
out … We stoned the school and they came out and some were assaulted.
I think there was an attempted arson to the laboratory. But it did not burn
completely. And there was disruption.137
This was a last desperate attempt to generate mass action in Thembisa. Thereafter,
the new leaders at Thembisa High and many other students in the township went
into hiding. Several student leaders had concluded in prison that state repression
was too much and that it would be better to leave the country. Madlala claims the
decision was taken in prison and that they had already established channels to leave
undetected. According to Mongezi Maphuthi:
It was a question of saying we were being hunted by the police. We were away
from our homes; we were on the run. I ended up going back to Alexandra.
From Alexandra I would go to Soweto. This happened until a guy called
Matias Cholo – he was in the leadership at Boitumelong – organised that
we got to leave the country because we were harassed. Cholo was very close
with a guy called Brunza who was from exile. 138
Their attempts to leave the country were fraught with problems. Maphuthi explains
how his group’s attempt to go into exile failed owing to confusion and bad planning:
We went to Matias’ home, Thami Mnyele was also there. We were about to
leave the country. Then a truck came in the middle of the night. This truck was
carrying Xhosa-speaking people from eKoloni (Cape). We had been briefed
by Matias and others that we belonged to the ANC. So we all jumped into
the truck with our belongings. And on the way we then heard these people
136 Ibid.
137 Ibid.
138 Interview with Mongezi Maphuthi.

The Soweto Uprising 365
talking about the PAC. They said: ‘The PAC stands for Africa for Africans.’
On our way we quarrelled with these guys. This was not far from Oshoek.
Some people in the truck were saying we are going forward and others were
saying no, we are not going forward. We then jumped off the truck and ran
into a huge bush. We were running in all directions. It was myself, Joe and
Freddie. Freddie was my cousin from Soweto I had recruited. Luckily we got
a lift. We managed to get back home. Others were arrested.139
Madlala was arrested before he even left his house:
I came back from Natalspruit [Katlehong] but I was not staying at home.
On the day that I was supposed to go I left Tsenelong section, where I was
hiding, I went home. I wanted to reach my mom before she left for work
– just to get money from her and then go. She left me money and went to
work. I started packing my bag. I took everything from the bedroom. I was
in the kitchen ready to go out. But I had forgotten money on the dressing
table. I went back that side in the bed room to get the money. When I came
back they were already in the house.140
On 1 November, students at Thembisa engaged in the final act of resistance of the year
when they organised a protest against the writing of school examinations. Pupils who
wanted to write the examinations were jeered and intimidated. The examinations were
called off and scholars as well as outsiders staged a march in Thembisa. Nonetheless,
political activity had virtually ground to a halt. Only a handful of activists continued
to meet as a group for political discussions, visiting the families of their schoolmates
that had been arrested and comforting such families.
Kathorus
Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus (Kathorus) – also on the East Rand – took up
the cudgels on 17 June, in solidarity with the children of Soweto. The uprising on the
East Rand was under-reported, however, due to the almost exclusive focus on Soweto.
The Vosloorus uprising was, in fact, the first major demonstration of worker and
youth unity in action and was significant also for the involvement of hostel dwellers.
As Volsoorus youth marched through the township on the evening of 17 June,
PUTCO took the precaution of moving their buses from the depot adjacent to the
township hall where they usually parked them to the Boksburg depot in town. On the
morning of 18 June, PUTCO drivers had to collect buses from Boksburg. Thousands
of commuters waited for nearly two hours before the first buses arrived at 5 am. The
workers were incensed and began stoning the buses. PUTCO decided to withdraw
all the buses from township routes, effectively leaving the whole Vosloorus workforce
stranded. Apartheid planning had left the township without a railway connection,

139 Ibid.
140 Interview with Mike Figo Madlala, 5 November 2004.

366 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
which made residents almost entirely dependent on PUTCO buses. The 30 000
workers, including migrants residing in the large single-sex hostels, decided to stay

at home rather than walk to their workplaces in Boksburg, resulting in the first stay-
away in Vosloorus. The workers, who were joined by students, gathered along M.C.

Botha Avenue, the main road connecting the township to Boksburg, to demonstrate
and to show their solidarity with the children of Soweto. They proceeded to other parts
of the township, attacking buildings associated with the East Rand Administration
Board (ERAB) or the government. In the space of four hours, the beer hall, the post
office, the hostel office and the community hall were set ablaze or broken down by
workers and students.
In Katlehong and Thokoza, however, the uprising was student rather than worker
led. As conflict in Soweto escalated, ERAB officials, police, principals and Urban
Council Board (UCB) councillors were recruited onto a surveillance network to
monitor each of the townships. Principals were called at regular intervals to ascertain
whether there were any disturbances. On the morning of 18 June, the principals
in Thokoza reported no obvious problems; in Katlehong one principal noted the
presence of unknown persons in the vicinity of the school. The apparent quiet was
soon shattered, however, when secondary school students all over the East Rand
gathered in mass meetings in their respective schools. From there they marched and
demonstrated through the townships. Suddenly the authorities were confronted, not
just by isolated incidents in a single township but also by almost simultaneous protests
across the region. ERAB immediately withdrew its personnel and effectively handed
over the running of the townships to the police. The authorities in Katlehong closed
all schools and ordered armoured vehicles to patrol the township.
Although 18 June was a Friday, the weekend break did little to calm down matters.
Protests continued over the weekend and on Sunday matters grew worse in Katlehong.
Police reports flowed in from all over the region virtually every quarter of an hour.
The police diary of events from 20 to 25 June charts these events, often in a vivid
way. On the night of 20 June, the police diary records which form part of the Cillie
Commission noted :
19h30: Gatsha Buthelezi sighted at Natalspruit Hospital and was being
watched by the police. Information about an alleged plan to attack railways
and buses on Monday 21 June.
20h20: Unrest at Kwesine Hostel. Ambulance set alight.
21h15: All ERAB staff removed from the hostel.
21h20: SAP also withdraws from the hostel.
22h20: Hostel set alight.
01h30: Police suppress unrest at Kwesine hostel.
The involvement of hostel dwellers in the June 1976 uprising is significant, as existing
literature and township lore portray them as having been opposed to student struggles.
Their involvement in Katlehong also demonstrates the rapid transformation of
the struggle from being against the imposition of Afrikaans to opposition to Bantu

The Soweto Uprising 367
education and the entire apartheid system. Workers, who were shocked and outraged
by the state’s brutal repression of student demonstrations, easily identified with the
broader objectives of the uprising.
Groups of youth in Kathorus also attacked official buildings, houses and vehicles.
ERAB officials residing in the township were also targeted. Over the next few days
students vented their anger at the most conspicuous and reviled symbols of apartheid
exploitation such as beer halls and bars, including Wag-’n-bietjie, Calypso, Last
Chance, Pilot and Cyril Victor. In Thokoza and Vosloorus, fewer beer halls were
attacked but the ones that were, sustained considerable damage. Although regular
clashes occurred between the police and students, there were no reports of killings,
even though the police used live ammunition.
A week later, the East Rand police reported that ‘[t]he situation has calmed down
considerably’.141 Despite the apparent return to normality, however, the authorities
only decided to reopen schools in mid-July. Even then extra police were deployed
at the schools.142 Students utilised the opportunity provided by the reopening of the
schools to mobilise against police action and the detention of their colleagues.
A week after the schools reopened, Tokothaba Secondary School in Thokoza
was partly gutted after being set alight.143 Throughout August there were marches
and demonstrations. On 5 August students at Ilinge Secondary School in Vosloorus
– carrying placards that read: ‘Why was Herbert shot and Walter detained?’ –
approached the principal, Xulu, to ask why one of their colleagues had been shot
and another detained. Xulu, who was also a councillor, was accused of colluding
with the police. Students then marched to other schools and persuaded students to
join the protest. Later that month hundreds of Thokoza students marched through
the township and ERAB offices in Katlehong were burned.144 During one of these
marches a student, Mokethi Radebe, went missing. The police claimed he was not
arrested but his parents were unable to find him. This kind of incident aggravated an
already tense situation.
By the end of August it had become abundantly clear that the school boycott in
Katlehong would not end soon. Only 150 out of 830 students at Katlehong High
School were attending classes regularly.145 Similar situations existed at the other
secondary schools in Kathorus.
By the end of the year most students were neither prepared nor willing to take the
final examinations. Attempts by the school authorities to insist on the examinations
provoked angry responses. Students at Ilinge Secondary School in Vosloorus expressed
their feelings about the situation in a handwritten letter left under the door of their
principal’s office:

141 The World, 25 June 1976.
142 The World, 23 July 1976.
143 The World, 30 July 1976.
144 The World, 13 September 1976.
145 The World, 25 September 1976.

368 The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2
Dear Xulu you blady cell out. Just continue with that exam of yours. You’ll
suffer within a minute. It means you’re happy with those who were detained.
You cell out. We will be there tomorrow, you must make up your mind
otherwise that school of yours will [go] into flame today at night. Please
those exam papers we want them we will burn them in front of you, you cell
out. Xulu you’re busy writing, other people are suffering in detention.146
Scores of students were arrested on charges ranging from sabotage to distributing
pamphlets. In November, 13 Katlehong students appeared in court on charges of
incitement and sabotage. They were accused of inciting students from Katlehong
Secondary School to march to the police station to demand the release of detained
students and of burning ERAB offices in Hlalatse and Tsolo sections, destroying a
tractor and looting about twelve shops. A witness, Mavis Tsibanyoni, testified that
two of the accused, Elliot Radebe and Carel Manake, had told students to burn the
buildings but not to use violence against individuals. She recalled that students sang,
Nkosi Sikelel’i iAfrika and ‘Kruger shall never go to heaven’. When they met the police,
teargas canisters were shot at them, causing pandemonium. 147
In what was probably the biggest trial in the region, 57 people from Katlehong
and Daveyton, another East Rand township, were charged with public violence in
the Germiston regional court. The ages of the accused ranged from eight to 47, a span
that effectively refuted the authorities’ claim that only youth were involved in the
uprising. In another trial, seven Katlehong students were found guilty of producing
and disseminating Black Consciousness pamphlets.
In the aftermath of the June 1976 uprising, Katlehong students embarked on a
number of initiatives to organise themselves in schools. In the latter part of 1976,
a number of attempts were made to establish student representative councils in
the secondary schools. In Vosloorus, Rankele Ratswane and his colleagues formed
a branch of the Student Christian Movement (SCM), which he says ran ‘religious
items at school’ and debates. ‘[W]e were visited by other students from Soweto with
the influence obviously of activists,’ he adds. ‘Moses Mochadibane … actually invited
them to come and empower us politically to a certain extent. At one state we initiated
to form Lesedi Youth Organisation.’148
Black Consciousness had made an impression on many students. Other than
the SCM, however, the political support for Black Consciousness ideas did not
immediately translate into organisational gains for BCM. That would only happen
towards the end of the 1970s.

146 Die Vaderland, 5 November 1976.
147 The World, 19 and 24 November 1976.
148 Interview with Rankele Ratswane.

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