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. The Sharpeville Massacre took place in a south african police station of Sharpeville. His colleagues followed suit and opened fire. Accounting & Finance; Business, Companies and Organisation, Activity; Case Studies; Economy & Economics; Marketing and Markets; People in Business Ingrid de Kok was a child living on a mining compound near Johannesburg where her father worked at the time of the Sharpeville massacre. Updates? The 1960 Sharpeville Massacre was the result of a peaceful protest regarding racist South African policies of apartheid. Nelson Mandela was a member of the banned African National Congress and led an underground armed movement that opposed the apartheid by attacking government buildings in South Africa during the early 1960s. 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. Perseverance and determination are also needed to build on the lessons learnedfrom the Sharpeville tragedy and repair the injustices of the past. The term human rights was first used in the UN Charter in 1945. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite. 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. When the demonstrators began to throw stones at the police, the police started shooting into the crowd. The Sharpeville Massacre On the morning of March 21, 1960, several thousand residents of Sharpeville marched to the township's police station. Confrontation in the township of Sharpeville, Gauteng Province. The Supreme Courts decision in the famous and landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 set a precedent for desegregation in schools. [1], Victims were buried en masse in a ceremony performed by clergy. [3], South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of African South Africans into cities. March 21, is celebrated as a public holiday in honor of human rights and to commemorate 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 Sharpeville Massacre is commemorated through Human Rights Day, a public holiday in South Africa, which honours those whose lives were sacrificed in the fight for democracy. Following the dismantling of apartheid, South African President Nelson Mandela chose Sharpeville as the site at which, on December 10, 1996, he signed into law the countrys new constitution. The protesters responded by hurling stones (striking three policemen) and rushing the police barricades. The police response to the protest became the primary cause of the massacre. Crowds fleeing from bullets on the day of the Massacre. "[6]:p.538, The uproar among South Africa's black population was immediate, and the following week saw demonstrations, protest marches, strikes, and riots around the country. International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Committee Member - MNF Research Advisory Committee, PhD Scholarship - Uncle Isaac Brown Indigenous Scholarship. In 1946, the UN established the Commission on Human Rights, whose first job was to draft a declaration on human rights. Sharpeville had a high rate of unemployment as well as high crime rates. [12], Many White South Africans were also horrified by the massacre. Improved homework resources designed to support a variety of curriculum subjects and standards. It is likely that the police were quick to fire as two months before the massacre, nine constables had been assaulted and killed, some disembowelled, during a raid at Cato Manor. The Minister of Justice called for calm and the Minister of Finance encouraged immigration. Sharpeville was first built in 1943 to replace Topville, a nearby township that suffered overcrowding where illnesses like pneumonia were widespread. The protesters offered themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passes. The United Nations Security Council and governments worldwide condemned the police action and the apartheid policies that prompted this violent assault. In her moving poem Our Sharpeville she reflects on the atrocity through the eyes of a child. All the evidence points to the gathering being peaceful and good humoured. 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). The events also prompted theInternational Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discriminationwhich took effect on 4 January 1969. A posseman. Sobukwe was only released in 1969. Massacre in Sharpeville. As an act of rebellion the passes were set alight, as seen in a picture by Ranjith Kally. Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK. 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. 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. A policeman was accidently pushed over and the crowd began to move forward to see what was happening. He became South Africa's . 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. This assisted in minimizing unity between the exploited to rally against European control as it backhandedly induced submission for survival. People often associate their behavior and actions from the groups they belong to. The firing lasted for approximately two minutes, leaving 69 people dead and, according to the official inquest, 180 people seriously wounded. Langa Township was gripped by tension and in the turmoil that ensued, In the violence that followed an employee of the Cape Times newspaper Richard Lombard was killed by the rioting crowd. 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. In 1994, Mandela signed the nations first post-apartheid constitution near the site of the 1960 massacre. 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. Unfortunately, police forces arrived and open fired on the protesters, killing ninety-six in what became known as the Sharpeville massacre. Krog was one of these Afrikaners. The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on March 21, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. Find out more about our work towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 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. Freedom Now Suite includes the composition Tears for Johannesburg in response to the massacre. This affirmed that the elimination of racial discrimination was a global challenge that affronted the respect and dignity of all human beings. 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. 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. Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. Eventually a few of the demonstrators dared to cross the street, led by James Forman who had organized the march. 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 call for a stay away on 28 March was highly successful and was the first ever national strike in the countrys history. In 1960 it was the site of one of the earliest and most violent demonstrations against apartheid . During the shooting about 69 black people were killed. At this conference, it was announced that the PAC would launch its own anti-pass campaign. Approximately 10,000 Africans were forcibly removed to Sharpeville. Yet only three policemen were reported to have been hit by stones - and more than 200 Africans were shot down. and [proved to be] the only antidote against foreign rule and modern imperialism (Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom 2008, 156) . To read more about the protests in Cape Town. The police and army arrested thousands of Africans, who were imprisoned with their leaders, but still the mass action raged. We need the voices of young people to break through the silence that locks in discrimination and oppression. It had wide ramifications and a significant impact. By 1960, however, anti-apartheid activism reached the town. His protest was ignored, and the government turned a blind eye to the increasing protests from industrialists and leaders of commerce. Across the street came 40 or so students who planned on joining the group en route to the Courthouse. A lot of Afrikaners felt a sense of guilt for the behavior they allowed to happen from their race towards another. The Sharpeville Massacre, 1960 Police Attack Demonstrators in Sharpeville, March 21, 1960 Few events loom larger in the history of the apartheid regime than those of the afternoon of March 21, 1960, in Sharpeville, South Africa. [10] At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protester, and the crowd surged forward. 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. By the end of the day, 69 people lay dead or dying, with hundreds more injured. . Matthews called on all South Africans to mark a national day of mourning for the victims on the 28 March. Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. [7][8], On 21 March, 1960, a group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the local police station, offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passbooks. Many people need to know that indiviual have their own rights in laws and freedom . Amid confusion, two shots were fired into the air by somebody in the crowd. 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. This shows a major similarity as they wanted to achieve the same things. It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. A state of emergency was declared in South Africa, more than 11,000 people were detained, and the PAC and ANC were outlawed. NO DEFENCE! But attempts to transform this non-binding moral declaration into a binding legal code were immediately bogged down in Cold War disputes. Furthermore, the history of the African civil rights movement validated: Nationalism has been tested in the peoples struggles . This caused many other countries to criticize South Africas apartheid policy. A deranged White man, David Pratt, made an assassination attempt on Dr. Verwoerd, who was seriously injured. This translates as shot or shoot. South Africa had already been harshly criticised for its apartheid policies, and this incident fuelled anti-apartheid sentiments as the international conscience was deeply stirred. Policemen in Cape Town were forcing Africans back to work with batons and sjamboks, and four people were shot and killed in Durban. Sobukwe subsequently announced that: On the morning of 21 March, PAC members walked around Sharpeville waking people up and urging them to take part in the demonstration. 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. 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