May
22
/ 2025
On June 16, 1976, the sidewalks of Soweto, short for South Western Townships, erupted in protest as Black students by the thousands took to the streets to challenge South Africa's apartheid regime. What had started out as a demonstration against the forced use of Afrikaans in the schools soon became a turning point in the fight for liberation, fanning resistance at home and worldwide condemnation. The apartheid regime's 1974 declaration requiring Afrikaans, the white minority's language, as a medium of instruction in Black township schools was the match that touched off a wider tinderbox of anger. Afrikaans was generally seen by Black South Africans as the "language of the oppressor," an instrument of domination rather than education, reports The BBC
