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. . Race, ethnicity and political groups, is an example of this. 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. As the campaign went on, the apartheid government started imposing strict punishments on people who violated the segregationist laws. [10] At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protester, and the crowd surged forward. 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. At 13h15 a small scuffle began near the entrance of the police station. Updates? A posseman. To share with more than one person, separate addresses with a comma. The Population Registration Act of 1950 enacted, requiring segregation of Europeans from Afrikaans . 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. The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a splinter group of the African National Congress (ANC) created in 1959, organized a countrywide demonstration for March 21, 1960, for the abolition of South Africas pass laws. At this conference, it was announced that the PAC would launch its own anti-pass campaign. Sharpeville is a township near Vereeniging, in the Gauteng province of South Africa. In her moving poem Our Sharpeville she reflects on the atrocity through the eyes of a child. 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. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. In the aftermath of the events of 21 March, mass funerals were held for the victims. 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). In 1994, Mandela signed the nations first post-apartheid constitution near the site of the 1960 massacre. Black citizens began to resist this prejudice though and also used violence against the enforcers of Apartheid. The enforcement of Pass Laws and the reissue of laws that restricted the. 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. Let's Take Action Towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 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. However, many people joined the procession quite willingly. The massacre was one of the catalysts for a shift from passive resistance to armed resistance by these organisations. Along the way small groups of people joined him. The march was also led by Clarence Makwetu, the Secretary of the PACs New Flats branch. Another officer interpreted this as an order and opened fire, triggering a lethal fusillade as 168 police constables followed his example. Sharpeville marked a turning point in South Africa's history; the country found itself increasingly isolated in the international community. the Sharpeville Massacre It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. All that changed following the worlds moral outrage at the killings. 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. 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. On the 60th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, the world should remember the contingency and fragility of the international human rights law system that we so easily take for granted today. 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. Accessible across all of today's devices: phones, tablets, and desktops. Courtesy BaileySeippel Gallery/BAHA Source. 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." 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. On 21 March 1960, sixty-nine unarmed anti-pass protesters were shot dead by police and over 180 were injured. Selinah was shot in her leg but survived the massacre. On 24 March 1960, in protest of the massacre, Regional Secretary General of the PAC, Philip Kgosana, led a march of 101 people from Langa to the police headquarters in Caledon Square, Cape Town. To read more about the protests in Cape Town. 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 Black Consciousness Movement sparked mass protests among Blacks and prompted other liberation movements to demonstrate against the apartheid. 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 logjam was only broken after the Sharpeville massacre as the UN decided to deal with the problem of apartheid South Africa. The Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker mentioned the Sharpeville Massacre in her verse. To re-enable the tools or to convert back to English, click "view original" on the Google Translate toolbar. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Significant reshaping of international law is often the result of momentous occurrences, most notably the first and second world wars. [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. Within hours the news of the killing at Sharpeville was flashed around the world. 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, a new police station was created, from which the police were energetic to check passes, deporting illegal residents, and raiding illegal shebeens. Kgosana agreed to disperse the protestors in if a meeting with J B Vorster, then Minister of Justice, could be secured. On March 21, 1960, police in Sharpeville, South Africa, shot hundreds of people protesting laws that restricted the movement of blacks. Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. During those five months roughly 25,000 people were arrested throughout the nation. 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. 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. Sixty-nine protesters died, and the massacre became an iconic moment in the struggle against apartheid. 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. Sharpeville was first built in 1943 to replace Topville, a nearby township that suffered overcrowding where illnesses like pneumonia were widespread. In the Black township of Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Afrikaner police open fire on a group of unarmed Black South African demonstrators, killing 69 people and wounding 180 in a hail of submachine-gun fire. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced submission for survival. 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. 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. In 1946, the UN established the Commission on Human Rights, whose first job was to draft a declaration on human rights. As segregation and civil rights become national topics, their. I will argue that the massacre created a major short-term crisis for the apartheid state, a crisis which appeared to The Sharpeville massacre. It was adopted on December 21 1965. Please note: Text within images is not translated, some features may not work properly after translation, and the translation may not accurately convey the intended meaning. Across the street came 40 or so students who planned on joining the group en route to the Courthouse. Selinah Mnguniwas 23 years old and already three months pregnant when she was injured in the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. On the day passes were suspended (25 March 1960) Kgosana led another march of between 2000 and 5000 people from Langa to Caledon Square. Freedom Now Suite includes the composition Tears for Johannesburg in response to the massacre. On 24 March 1960, in protest of the . In order to reduce the possibility of violence, he wrote a letter to the Sharpeville police commissioner announcing the upcoming protest and emphasizing that its participants would be non-violent. The PAC and the African National Congress, another antiapartheid party, were banned. A dompass in those days was an Identification Document that determined who you were, your birth date, what race you are and permission from your employers to be in a specific place at a specific time. When the demonstrators began to throw stones at the police, the police started shooting into the crowd. Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. [10] Few of the policemen present had received public order training. But in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, the UN adopted a more interventionist stance towards the apartheid state. The ratification of these laws may have made the separate but equal rhetoric illegal for the U.S. but the citizens inside it still battled for their beliefs. 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.