1976 — The Soweto Uprising

On June 16, 1976, students in Soweto, South Africa, marched against the apartheid government's order to teach in Afrikaans. They were schoolchildren protesting a language imposed on their classrooms, and they met a state prepared to answer a student march with force rather than listen to what the young people were saying.

Police opened fire on the unarmed protesters. The world saw the body of twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson carried through the streets, and a generation's struggle against apartheid ignited. That image carried Soweto far beyond South Africa. June 16 is now South Africa's Youth Day, honoring the students who marched and those who fell.