It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. The rally began peacefully, the iron bell was rung (usually it was rung to signal victories in football games) and one speaker started to speak. But it was not until after Sharpeville that the UN made clear that the countrys system of racial segregation would no longer be tolerated. The police shot many in the back as they turned to flee, causing some to be paralyzed. Sharpeville massacre | Summary, Significance, & Facts Sharpeville Massacre, 21 March 1960 | South African History Online 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 ). That impact is best broken down into its short-term, medium-term, and long-term significance. 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. 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. The massacre was one of the catalysts for a shift from passive resistance to armed resistance by these organisations. The PAC argued that if thousands of people were arrested, then the jails would be filled and the economy would come to a standstill. 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." But change can also be prompted by seemingly minor events in global affairs, such as the Sharpeville massacre the so-called butterfly effect. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. The targeted protest became infamous in the Civil Rights Movement, marked Bloody Sunday and was crucial to gaining favor of the public (civilrights.org). On the day passes were suspended (25 March 1960) Kgosana led another march of between 2000 and 5000 people from Langa to Caledon Square. A United Nations photograph by Kay Muldoon, Courtesy of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, SATIS (Southern Africa - the Imprisoned Society). Unfortunately, police forces arrived and open fired on the protesters, killing ninety-six in what became known as the Sharpeville massacre. According to his "Testimony about the Launch of the Campaign," Sobukwe declared: At the press conference Sobukwe emphasized that the campaign should be conducted in a spirit of absolute non-violence and that the PAC saw it as the first step in Black people's bid for total independence and freedom by 1963 (Cape Times, 1960). All blacks were required to carry ``pass books ' ' containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. [6]:pp.14,528 From the 1960s, the pass laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain and harass its political opponents. By the end of the day, 69 people lay dead or dying, with hundreds more injured. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. March 21 is a public holiday in South Africa in commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre. Other evidence given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission "the evidence of Commission deponents reveals a degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire at Sharpeville and indicates that the shooting was more than the result of inexperienced and frightened police officers losing their nerve. When the news of the Sharpeville Massacre reached Cape Town a group of between 1000 to 5000 protestors gathered at the Langa Flats bus terminus around 17h00 on 21 March 1960. Sixty-nine protesters died, and the massacre became an iconic moment in the struggle against apartheid. But in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, the UN adopted a more interventionist stance to the apartheid state. The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on March 21, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. 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. International sympathy lay with the African people, leading to an economic slump as international investors withdrew from South Africa and share prices on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange plummeted. The term human rights was first used in the UN Charter in 1945. Its similar to an article in south africa that people have with racial segregation between black and white . Amid confusion, two shots were fired into the air by somebody in the crowd. Although the protests were anticipated, no one could have predicted the consequences and the repercussions this would have for South African and world politics. Some were shot in the back as they fled.[1]. Furthermore, a new police station was created, from which the police were energetic to check passes, deporting illegal residents, and raiding illegal shebeens. 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. Eyewitness accounts of the Sharpeville massacre 1960 The day of the Massacre, mourning the dead and getting over the shock of the event Baileys African History Archive (BAHA) Tom Petrus, author of 'My Life Struggle', Ravan Press. 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. It had wide ramifications and a significant impact. All the evidence points to the gathering being peaceful and good humoured. Freedom Now Suite includes the composition Tears for Johannesburg in response to the massacre. These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), led by Robert Sobukwe, decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March, because they believed that the ANC could not win the campaign. In 1960, states had no binding international human rights obligations and there were no oversight mechanisms. On March 30, the South African government declared a state of emergency which made any protest illegal. Eyewitness accounts of the Sharpeville massacre 1960 However, the nations mentality needed work - though the popularity of Civil Rights was rising, many riots and racial hate crimes continued to occur throughout the country, with many casualties resulting from them (infoplease.com). What were the consequences of the Sharpeville Massacre? 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. As well as the introduction of the Race Convention, Sharpeville also spurred other moves at the UN that changed the way it could act against countries that breached an individuals human rights. The massacre occurred at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville, A child demonstrates in front of Johannesburgs city hall after the Sharpeville massacre (AFP/Getty), The aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, The BritishAnti-Apartheid Movement marks the tenth anniversary of the massacre with a re-enactmentin Trafalgar Square, A family member stands next to a memorial toone of the victims of the Sharpeville massacre ahead of Human Rights Day in 2016 (AFP/Getty), Its been 60 years since dozens of protesters were killed at a peaceful anti-apartheid rally in South Africa. The events also prompted theInternational Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discriminationwhich took effect on 4 January 1969. The Sharpeville Massacre On the morning of March 21, 1960, several thousand residents of Sharpeville marched to the township's police station. The enforcement of Pass Laws and the reissue of laws that restricted the. The logjam was only broken after the Sharpeville massacre, as the UN decided to deal with the problem of apartheid South Africa. Some estimates put the size of the crowd at 20,000. 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 . Expert Answers. These resolutions established two important principles: that the human rights provisions in the UN Charter created binding obligations for member states, and the UN could intervene directly in situations involving serious violations of human rights. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Even so and estimated 2000 to 3000 people gathered on the Commons. The massacre was photographed by photographer Ian Berry, who initially thought the police were firing blanks. Do you find this information helpful? In conclusion; Sharpeville, the imposition of a state of emergency, the arrest of thousands of Black people and the banning of the ANC and PAC convinced the anti-apartheid leadership that non-violent action was not going to bring about change without armed action. As the number of UN members from Africa increased, the commission reversed its no power to act position and turned its attention to the human rights situation in South Africa. "The aeroplanes were flying high and low. When the news of the Sharpeville Massacre reached Cape Town a group of between 1000 to 5000 protestors gathered at the Langa Flats bus terminus around 17h00 on 21 March 1960. The logjam was only broken after the Sharpeville massacre as the UN decided to deal with the problem of apartheid South Africa. A week after the state of emergency was declared the ANC and the PAC were banned under the Unlawful Organisations Act of 8 April 1960. 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. Furthermore, the history of the African civil rights movement validated: Nationalism has been tested in the peoples struggles . Sharpeville is a township near Vereeniging, in the Gauteng province of South Africa. To re-enable the tools or to convert back to English, click "view original" on the Google Translate toolbar. Sharpeville Massacre Newzroom Afrika 229K subscribers Subscribe 178 Share 19K views 2 years ago As South Africa commemorates Human Rights Day, victims and families of those who died at the. In response, a police officer shouted in Afrikaans skiet or nskiet (exactly which is not clear), which translates either as shot or shoot. However, the 1289 Words 6 Pages [6]:p.534, By 10:00, a large crowd had gathered, and the atmosphere was initially peaceful and festive. A posseman. This angered the officers causing them to brutally attack and tear gas the demonstrators. Policemen in Cape Town were forcing Africans back to work with batons and sjamboks, and four people were shot and killed in Durban. Pogrund,B. [5], F-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within 30 metres (98ft) of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. UNESCO marks 21 March as the yearly International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the massacre. Philip H. Frankel, An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and its Massacre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Africa Since 1960 (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1982); Meredith Martin, The History of Apartheid: The Story of the Colour War in South Africa (New York: London House & Maxwell, 1962). Tear gas was again fired into the crowd but because of wind the gas had little effect on dispersing the students, some of the protesters picked up the tear gas canisters and threw them back at the Guard. Both were tasked with mobilizing international financial and diplomatic support for sanctions against South Africa. The Black Consciousness Movement sparked mass protests among Blacks and prompted other liberation movements to demonstrate against the apartheid. Massacre in Sharpeville. With the election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa in 1994, the apartheid system ended. Police arrested more than 11,000 people and kept them in jail. A robust humanrights framework is the only way to provide a remedy for those injustices, tackle inequality and underlying structural differences, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Updates? The ANC and PAC were forced underground, and both parties launched military wings of their organisations in 1961. Take a minute to check out all the enhancements! 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. The story of March 21 1960 is told by Tom Lodge, a scholar of South African politics, in his book Sharpeville. We hope you and your family enjoy the NEW Britannica Kids. He became South Africa's . The PAC organised demonstration attracted between 5,000 and 7,000 protesters. [12], Many White South Africans were also horrified by the massacre. The victims included about 50 women and children. Racial and religious conflicts; conflicts between dictatorial governments and their citizens; the battle between the sexes; conflicts between management and labor; and conflicts between heterosexuals and homosexuals all stem, in whole or in part, to oppression. His protest was ignored, and the government turned a blind eye to the increasing protests from industrialists and leaders of commerce. 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. Sharpeville Massacre - The Presidential Years - Nelson Mandela Sharpeville, a black suburb outside of Vereeniging (about fifty miles south of Johannesburg), was untouched by anti-apartheid demonstrations that occurred in surrounding towns throughout the 1950s. Apartheid in South Africa. - GCSE Politics - Marked by Teachers.com The Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker mentioned the Sharpeville Massacre in her verse. Dr. Verwoerd praised the police for their actions. Witness History. 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. The South African government began arresting more nonconformists and banning resistance organizations, such as the African National Congress and the Pan African Congress. The firing lasted for approximately two minutes, leaving 69 people dead and, according to the official inquest, 180 people seriously wounded. Accounting & Finance; Business, Companies and Organisation, Activity; Case Studies; Economy & Economics; Marketing and Markets; People in Business 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. (2007), New History of South Africa. Following the Brown decision, grassroots African American activists began challenging segregation through protests continuing into the 1960s (Aiken et al., 2013). 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. The Minister of Native Affairs declared that apartheid was a model for the world. As the number of UN members from Africa increased, the commission reversed its no power to act position and turned its attention to the human rights situation in South Africa. Matthews called on all South Africans to mark a national day of mourning for the victims on the 28 March. Find out more about our work towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 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. Sharpeville Massacre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays Eyewitness accounts and evidence later led to an official inquiry which attested to the fact that large number of people were shot in the back as they were fleeing the scene. Furthermore, during the nineties to the twenties, leaders of African Americans sought to end segregation in the South, as caused by Plessy v. Ferguson. 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. The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. Its been 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 unarmed civilians were killed by armed South African police on March 21 1960. Just after 1pm, there was an altercation between the police officer in charge and the leaders of the demonstration. Mr. Tsolo and other members of the PAC Branch Executive continued to advance - in conformity with the novel PAC motto of "Leaders in Front" - and asked the White policeman in command to let them through so that they could surrender themselves for refusing to carry passes. There were also youth problems because many children joined gangs and were affiliated with crimes instead of schools. Max Roach's 1960 Album We Insist! It include with civil right that violence verses non-violence that the government could or. The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on March 21, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. After apartheid ended, President Nelson Mandela chose Sharpeville as the place to sign South Africas new constitution on December 10, 1996. This shows a major similarity as they wanted to achieve the same things. Let's Take Action Towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The significance of the date is reflected in the fact that. In November 1961, a military branch of the party was organized with Mandela as its head. Another officer interpreted this as an order and opened fire, triggering a lethal fusillade as 168 police constables followed his example. On March 21, demonstrators disobeyed the pass laws by giving up or burning their pass books. A black person would be of or accepted as a member of an African tribe or race, and a colored person is one that is not black or white. His colleagues followed suit and opened fire. PDF "A tragic turning-point: remembering Sharpeville fifty years on" Reddy. African Americans demonstrated their frustration with lack of progress on the issue through non-violent means and campaigns led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (Bourne, In a march against segregation and barriers for African-American voting rights, peaceful marchers were exposed to harsh treatment by the police, 50 being hospitalized by the terrorism inflicted on them (civilrights.org). [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. Unlike elsewhere on the East Rand where police used baton when charging at resisters, the police at Sharpeville used live ammunition. Many of the civilians present attended voluntarily to support the protest, but there is evidence that the PAC also used coercive means to draw the crowd there, including the cutting of telephone lines into Sharpeville, and preventing bus drivers from driving their routes. Steven Wheatley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. According to the police, protesters began to stone them and, without any warning, one of the policemen on the top of an armoured car panicked and opened fire. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. 26 Black policemen and 365 Black civilians were injured no White police men were killed and only 60 were injured. On This Day in History: The Sharpeville Massacre There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 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. [20], Sharpeville was the site selected by President Nelson Mandela for the signing into law of the Constitution of South Africa on 10 December 1996. Although this event in itself acted as a turning point in the struggle of black South Africans towards restoring dignity, but there were certain events which happened before Sharpeville massacre that caused widespread frustration and resentment in the black African community.