1976 - Soweto Uprising

The Soweto Uprising of 1976 is one of the best-known events in the struggle against Apartheid. On June 16, 1976, thousands of children in Soweto, an African township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the government’s insistence that they be taught in Afrikaans rather than in English. When the police and the army responded to the demonstrators by firing tear gas and then bullets, an estimated 400 to 700 people, many of them children, were killed. It marked the beginning of a sustained anti-apartheid revolt that reverberated across the country. The government again responded with heavy-handed repression. They banned many organizations, such as the BPC. And within a year, the police arrested 1,298 people and killed more than 500 involved in resistance, including Biko. 

In South Africa, June 16 is now observed annually as Youth Day, which commemorates the uprising.