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. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced submission for survival. By lunchtime, the crowd outside the police station had grown to an estimated 20,000 people. The subject of racial discrimination in South Africa was raised at the UN General Assembly in its first session, in 1946, in the form of a complaint by India concerning the treatment of Indians in the country. The moral outrage surrounding these events led the United Nations General Assembly to pronounce 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which recognized racism as a gross human rights violation. Pheko, M. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget Sharpeville', The Sowetan, 20 March. By the end of the day, 69 people lay dead or dying, with hundreds more injured. [21], In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that the police actions constituted "gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people. . On March 21, an estimated 7,000 South Africans gathered in front of the Sharpeville police station to protest against the restrictive pass laws. Courtesy BaileySeippel Gallery/BAHA Source. One of the insights was that international law does not change, unless there is some trigger for countries to change their behaviour. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Sharpeville is a township near Vereeniging, in the Gauteng province of South Africa . Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the day that changed the course of South African history. All that changed following the worlds moral outrage at the killings. On the 21st of March 1960, black residents of Sharpeville took to the police station to protest against the use of the dompas in South Africa. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Let's Take Action Towards the Sustainable Development Goals. During the Eisenhower administration, Congress passed two measures that proved to be ineffective: the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. [10] At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protester, and the crowd surged forward. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. Pretoria, South Africa, The blood we sacrificed was worth it - Sharpeville Massacre, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Welcome to the United Nations country team website of South Africa. Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Approximately 10,000 Africans were forcibly removed to Sharpeville. Just after 1pm, there was an altercation between the police officer in charge and the leaders of the demonstration. Despite the Sharpeville massacre feeling seismic in its brutality, "we all thought at that moment that it would cause a change in the political situation in South Africa," said Berry - "it was really ten years before anything changed." . One of the insights has been that international law does not change unless there is some trigger for countries to change their behaviour. African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project, Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, Foundation, Organization, and Corporate Supporters. Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. Even so and estimated 2000 to 3000 people gathered on the Commons. The United Nations Security Council and governments worldwide condemned the police action and the apartheid policies that prompted this violent assault. 20072023 Blackpast.org. The quest for international support, mass mobilization, armed operations, and underground organization became the basis for the ANCs Four Pillars of Struggle. Sharpeville massacre, (March 21, 1960), incident in the Black township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging, South Africa, in which police fired on a crowd of Black people, killing or wounding some 250 of them. In 1960 it was the site of one of the earliest and most violent demonstrations against apartheid. On the morning of 21 March Robert Sobukwe left his house in Mofolo, a suburb of Soweto, and began walking to the Orlando police station. In the following days 77 Africans, many of whom were still in hospital, were arrested for questioning . The Apartheid was initiated as a ploy for Europeans to better control the exploited populations for economic gain, as maintaining tension between the different racial classifications diverted attention from the Europeans as it fed hatred between groups. The key developments were the adoption of Resolution 1235 in 1967, which allowed for the examination of complaints of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as exemplified by the policy of apartheid, and Resolution 1503 in 1970, which allowed the UN to examine complaints of a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights. Another officer interpreted this as an order and opened fire, triggering a lethal fusillade as 168 police constables followed his example. During this event 5,000 to 7,000 protesters went to the police station after a day of demonstrations, offering themselves for arrest for not carrying passbooks. Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. As they attempted to disperse the crowd, a police officer was knocked down and many in the crowd began to move forward to see what had happened. The South African government began arresting more nonconformists and banning resistance organizations, such as the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress. March 21 Massacre in Sharpeville In the Black township of Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Afrikaner police open fire on a group of unarmed Black South African demonstrators,. [12], Many White South Africans were also horrified by the massacre. To read more about the protests in Cape Town. The massacre was one of the catalysts for a shift from passive resistance to armed resistance by these organisations. Sobukwe was only released in 1969. An article entitled "PAC Campaign will be test," published in the 19 March 1960 issue of Contact,the Liberal Party newspaper, described the build up to the campaign: At a press conference held on Saturday 19th March 1960, PAC President Robert Sobukwe announced that the PAC was going to embark on an anti-pass campaign on Monday the 21st. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000,[5] and the mood was described as "ugly",[5] prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers, to be rushed in. What happened on 21 March in Sharpeville? The story of March 21 1960 is told by Tom Lodge, a scholar of South African politics, in his book Sharpeville. p. 334- 336|Historical Papers Archive of the University of the Witwatersrand [online] Accessed at: wits.ac.za and SAHA archive [link no longer available]. The Sharpsville Massacre was a seminal moment in the history of South Africa. Following the Sharpeville massacre, as it came to be known, the death toll rose to 69 and the number of injuries to 180. Many thousands of individuals applied for the amnesty program and a couple thousand testified through the course of 2 years. At the annual conference of the African National Congress (ANC) held in Durban on 16 December 1959, the President General of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli, announced that 1960 was going to be the "Year of the Pass." Similarly, African American leaders from the fifties to the sixties also fought for the end of segregation, in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. The police response to the protest became the primary cause of the massacre. Individuals over sixteen were required to carry passbooks, which contained an identity card, employment and influx authorisation from a labour bureau, name of employer and address, and details of personal history. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Others were throwing rocks and shouting "Pigs off campus. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? The ban remained in effect until August 31, 1960. Non-compliance with the race laws were dealt with harshly. Do you find this information helpful? The South African government then created the Unlawful Organizations Act of 1960 which banned anti-apartheid groups such as the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress. On the same day, the government responded by declaring a state of emergency and banning all public meetings. This riot was planned to be a peaceful riot for a strike on an 8-hour day, ended up turning into a battle between protesters and the police. The massacre also sparked hundreds of mass protests by black South Africans, many of which were ruthlessly and violently crushed by the South African police and military. Selinah was shot in her leg but survived the massacre. Black citizens began to resist this prejudice though and also used violence against the enforcers of Apartheid. This, said Mr Subukwe, would cause prisons to become overcrowded, labour to dry up and the economy to grind to a halt. As the small crowd approached the station, most of the marchers, including Sobukwe, were arrested and charged with sedition. The march was also led by Clarence Makwetu, the Secretary of the PACs New Flats branch. The officers asked the demonstrators to turn around; however, they did not budge. The commission completed this task, under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt, when it finalised the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. [1], Victims were buried en masse in a ceremony performed by clergy. Only the four Native Representatives and members of the new Progressive Party voted against the Bill. Massacre in Sharpeville. In March 1960, Robert Sobukwe, a leader in the anti-apartheid Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) organized the towns first anti-apartheid protest. Tafelberg Publishers: Cape Town. This was in direct defiance of the government's country-wide ban on public meetings and gatherings of more than ten persons. As an act of rebellion the passes were set alight, as seen in a picture by Ranjith Kally. At 13h15 a small scuffle began near the entrance of the police station. [10] Some insight into the mindset of those on the police force was provided by Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the police reinforcements at Sharpeville, who said in his statement that "the native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. In her moving poem Our Sharpeville she reflects on the atrocity through the eyes of a child. It also contributed the headline story at the Anti-Racism Live Global Digital Experience that marked March 21 internationally with acclaimed artists, actors and prominent speakers from South Africa including Thuli Madonsela, Zulaikha Patel and Zwai Bala. Some estimates put the size of the crowd at 20,000. They were mild campaigns at first, but as the government became more hostile, so did ANC protests. It include with civil right that violence verses non-violence that the government could or. The Sharpeville massacre was reported worldwide, and received with horror from every quarter. At its inaugural session in 1947, the UN Commission on Human Rights had decided that it had no power to take any action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights. The commission completed this task, under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt, when it finalised the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. On that day, demonstrations against the pass laws, which restricted the rights of the majority black population in apartheid South Africa, began in the early morning in Sharpeville, a township in Transvaal. That day about 20,000 people gathered near the Sharpeville police station. According to his "Testimony about the Launch of the Campaign," Sobukwe declared: To read more witness accounts of the Sharpeville Massacre, click on the, According to an account from Humphrey Tyler, the assistant editor at, Afrikaner Nationalism, Anglo American and Iscor: formation of Highveld Steel and Vanadium Corporation, 1960-70 in Business History", The Sharpeville Massacre: Its historic significance in the struggle against apartheid, The PAC's War against the State 1960-1963, in The Road to Democracy in South Africa: 1960-1970, The Sharpeville Massacre - A watershed in SouthAfrica, Saluting Sharpevilles heroes, and South Africa's human rights, New Books | Robert Sobukwes letters from prison, South African major mass killings timeline 1900-2012, Origins: Formation, Sharpeville and banning, 1959-1960, 1960-1966: The genesis of the armed struggle, Womens resistance in the 1960s - Sharpeville and its aftermath, Eyewitness accounts of the Sharpeville massacre 1960, List of victims of police action, 21 March, 1960 (Sharpeville and Langa), A tragic turning-point: remembering Sharpeville fifty years on by Paul Maylam, Apartheid: Sharpeville Massacre, 21 March 1960, Commission of Enquiry into the Occurrences at Sharpeville (and other places) on the 21st March, 1960, Volume 1, Johannesburg, 15 June 1960, Commission of Enquiry into the Occurrences at Sharpeville (and other places) on the 21st March, 1960, Volume 2, Johannesburg, 15 June 1960, Documents, and articles relating to the Sharpeville Massacre 1960, Editorial comment: The legacy of Sharpeville, From Our Vault: Sharpeville, A Crime That Still Echoes by J Brooks Spector, 21 March 2013, South Africa, Message to the PAC on Sharpeville Day by Livingstone Mqotsi, Notes on the origins of the movement for Sanctions against South Africa by E.S.
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