This abuse towards people of colour in South Africa made people around the world want to protest against South Africa's government. The police were armed with firearms, including Sten submachine guns and LeeEnfield rifles. In March 1960, Robert Sobukwe, a leader in the anti-apartheid Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) organized the towns first anti-apartheid protest. The mood of the protest had started out as peaceful and festive when there were . The row of graves of the 69 people killed by police at the Sharpeville Police Station on 21 March 1960. International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, "Outside South Africa there were widespread reactions to Sharpeville in many countries which in many cases led to positive action against South Africa"., E.g., "[I]mmediately following the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, over 1000 students demonstrated in Sydney against the apartheid system"., United Nations Security Council Resolution 610, United Nations Security Council Resolution 615, "The Sharpeville Massacre A watershed in South Africa", "The photos that changed history Ian Berry; Sharpeville Massacre", "Sharpeville Massacre, The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day", "Influential religious leader with 70-years in ministry to be laid to rest", "The Sharpeville Massacre - A watershed in South Africa", "Macmillan, Verwoerd and the 1960 'Wind of Change' Speech", "Naming history's forgotten fighters: South Africa's government is setting out to forget some of the alliance who fought against apartheid. 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. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. 351 Francis Baard Street,Metro Park Building ,10th Floor Witness History. In March 1960 the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), an antiapartheid party, organized nationwide protests against South Africas pass laws. Some of them remain in prison", "Sharpeville Memorial, Theunis Kruger Street, Dicksonville, Sharpville ABLEWiki", Calls for inquiry into Israels Gaza killings, Storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sharpeville_massacre&oldid=1140778365, Killings by law enforcement officers in South Africa, Short description is different from Wikidata, Use South African English from April 2016, All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:08. Police witnesses claimed that stones were thrown, and in a panicked and rash reaction, the officers opened fire on the crowd. The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng ). The South African government began arresting more nonconformists and banning resistance organizations, such as the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress. [10] Few of the policemen present had received public order training. Protestors asyoung as 12and13were killed. That date now marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and without the Sharpeville massacre, we may not have the international system of human rights that we have today. But it was not until after Sharpeville that the UN made clear that the countrys system of racial segregation would no longer be tolerated. ISCOR and SASOL, the state's metal and fuel companies, were and continue to be the two key role players in the provision of employment in the Sharpeville region. Attending a protest in peaceful defiance of the apartheid regime, Selinah and many other young people were demonstrating against pass laws designed to restrict and control the movement and employment of millions of Black South Africans. At least 180 were wounded. Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. It was a sad day for black South Africa. 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. By lunchtime, the crowd outside the police station had grown to an estimated 20,000 people. This translates as shot or shoot. Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. "[18][19], Since 1994, 21 March has been commemorated as Human Rights Day in South Africa. Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK. Both were tasked with mobilizing international financial and diplomatic support for sanctions against South Africa. 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. The, For one, African American leaders in the 90s to the 20s attempted to end the disenfranchisement of African Americans, done through poll taxes and literacy tests, by advocating their cause in the more sympathetic North. In the late 1980s, one of the most popular anti-apartheid movements that contributed to the end of the apartheid was the Free Mandela campaign. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. That date now marks the International Day for the. The police and army arrested thousands of Africans, who were imprisoned with their leaders, but still the mass action raged. All that changed following the worlds moral outrage at the killings. Participants were instructed to surrender their reference books (passes) and invite arrest. By 1960 the. The University had tried to ban the protest; they handed out 12,000 leaflets saying the event was cancelled. During those five months roughly 25,000 people were arrested throughout the nation. [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. By continuing to use this site, you consent to the terms of our cookie policy, which can be found in our. It's been 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 unarmed civilians were killed by armed South African police on March 21 1960. Professor of International Law, Lancaster University. All blacks were required to carry ``pass books ' ' containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. However, Foreign Consulates were flooded with requests for emigration, and fearful White South Africans armed themselves. Sharpeville was first built in 1943 to replace Topville, a nearby township that suffered overcrowding where illnesses like pneumonia were widespread. The Sharpeville massacre sparked hundreds of mass protests by black South Africans, many of which were ruthlessly and violently crushed by the South African police and military. When an estimated group of 5000 marchers reached Sharpeville police station, the police opened fire killing 69 people and injuring 180 others in what became known as the Sharpeville Massacre. Through a series of mass actions, the ANC planned to launch a nationwide anti-pass campaign on 31 March - the anniversary of the 1919 anti-pass campaign. But change can also be prompted by seemingly minor events in global affairs, such as the Sharpeville massacre the so-called butterfly effect. The Black Consciousness Movement sparked mass protests among Blacks and prompted other liberation movements to demonstrate against the apartheid. It was adopted on December 21 1965. A United Nations photograph by Kay Muldoon, Courtesy of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, SATIS (Southern Africa - the Imprisoned Society). The 1960 Sharpeville Massacre was the result of a peaceful protest regarding racist South African policies of apartheid. The ban remained in effect until August 31, 1960. Corrections? For the next two and a half decades, the commission held to this position on the basis that the UN Charter only required states to promote, rather than protect, human rights. (2007), New History of South Africa. [10], PAC actively organized to increase turnout to the demonstration, distributing pamphlets and appearing in person to urge people not to go to work on the day of the protest. 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. Sharpeville Massacre, The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day [online], available at: africanhistory.about.com [accessed 10 March 2009]|Thloloe, J. . a photographer whose pictures of the killings caused an . Baileys African History. Other PAC members tried to stop bus drivers from going on duty and this resulted in a lack transport for Sharpeville residents who worked in Vereeniging. According to an account from Humphrey Tyler, the assistant editor at Drum magazine: The police have claimed they were in desperate danger because the crowd was stoning them. In her moving poem Our Sharpeville she reflects on the atrocity through the eyes of a child. The world should remember the contingency and fragility of the international human rights law system that we so easily take for granted today. Others were throwing rocks and shouting "Pigs off campus. Sobukwe was only released in 1969. Youth standing up against racism was the 2021 theme, aimed at fostering a global culture of tolerance, equality and non-discrimination that calls on each one of us to stand up against racial prejudice and intolerant attitudes. It was a system of segregation put in place by the National Party, which governed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. As an act of rebellion the passes were set alight, as seen in a picture by Ranjith Kally. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Furthermore, during the nineties to the twenties, leaders of African Americans sought to end segregation in the South, as caused by Plessy v. Ferguson. apartheid: aftermath of the deadly Sharpeville demonstration, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/event/Sharpeville-massacre, Canadian Museum for Human Rights - The Sharpeville Massacre, South African History Online - Sharpeville Massacre, Sharpeville massacre - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Sharpeville massacre - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The poet Duncan Livingstone, a Scottish immigrant from the Isle of Mull who lived in Pretoria, wrote in response to the Massacre the Scottish Gaelic poem Bean Dubh a' Caoidh a Fir a Chaidh a Marbhadh leis a' Phoileas ("A Black Woman Mourns her Husband Killed by the Police"). 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. Reddy. One of the insights has been that international law does not change unless there is some trigger for countries to change their behaviour. . 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. [10] At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protester, and the crowd surged forward. Courtesy BaileySeippel Gallery/BAHA Source. March 21, is celebrated as a public holiday in honor of human rights and to commemorate the . BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. This march is seen by many as a turning point in South African history. The event also played a role in South Africa's departure from the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961. After translating an article, all tools except font up/font down will be disabled. When it seemed the whole group would cross, police took action, with mounted officers and volunteers arriving at 1:12 pm. During the shooting about 69 black people were killed. Police were temporarily paralyzed with indecision. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Along with other PAC leaders he was charged with incitement, but while on bail he left the country and went into exile. 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. Sharpeville was much more than a single tragic event. This set the UN on the path towards the recognition of all human rights for all, and, eventually, the establishment of the Human Rights Council, and the Universal Periodic Review of the human rights performance of all states.