Source M
Statement by South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster, broadcast on South African state radio, 18 June 1976, two days after the Soweto uprising began.
The events of the past few days in Soweto are the work of agitators who have exploited the grievances of a small group of students for subversive purposes. The South African government will not be held to ransom by those who seek to undermine order and the proper functioning of society. Education is provided to black students at great expense and this government will not permit the disruption of schools by those who reject the reasonable conditions under which that education is offered. The decision to use Afrikaans as a medium of instruction is an educational matter, and it will not be reversed under pressure from the streets. The police acted with restraint in difficult circumstances. The government calls on responsible community leaders to restore calm.
Source N
Photograph taken in Soweto, 16 June 1976, showing crowds of schoolchildren running through the streets with police vehicles visible in the background and smoke rising from buildings. Signs carried by students read "Down with Afrikaans" and "Bantu Education Must Fall."
Source O
Desmond Tutu, Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, writing in a public letter to Prime Minister Vorster, 6 May 1976, six weeks before the uprising.
I am writing to you, sir, because I have a growing nightmarish fear that unless something is done very soon then bloodshed and violence are going to happen in South Africa almost inevitably. A black person feels like a dog in his own country. Black people are bitter, and I must be honest with you: the anger of black people is real and growing, and I fear it will burst into violence that will be a blot on South Africa's name. I am writing as one who has deep love for this land, for all its peoples. We have tried to work peacefully, constitutionally, for change. But we are left with the growing feeling that we are being played for suckers. I plead with you in God's name, listen to us before it is too late.
Source P
Historian Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa, third edition, 2000.
The Soweto uprising of June 1976 marked a decisive turning point in the history of resistance to apartheid. It demonstrated that the apparent calm of the early 1970s had concealed a profound anger among the black urban population, particularly its youth. The immediate trigger was the Afrikaans medium decree of 1974, which required mathematics and social studies to be taught in Afrikaans in black schools. But the uprising was about far more than language: it was a rejection of Bantu Education as a system designed to condemn black South Africans to permanent inferiority. The international response, including the withdrawal of foreign investment and the strengthening of the arms embargo, accelerated the pressure on the apartheid state.
