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TransAfrica
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
f i v e TransAfrica We condemn the role played by the United States and other foreign corporations and banks, which by their presence and activities collectively have participated in the oppression of Blacks and have undergirded the repressive white minority governments of Southern Africa. . . . We commit ourselves to mobilizing Black Americans and others of good will to formulate and support a progressive U.S. policy toward Africa. And we state our opposition to those Blacks who work directly or indirectly to support white minority regimes in Southern Africa. —African-American Manifesto on Southern Africa, 24–25 September 1976 In 1976, the brutality of the South African state again shocked the world with a massacre of unarmed schoolchildren who were protesting the imposition of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in black schools. On 16 June, twelve thousand black primary- and secondary-school students in Soweto boycotted classes and staged a march to oppose the apartheid regime ’s language policy. The students and their parents felt that the use of Afrikaans would impede the students’ ability to grasp math and science and limit their opportunities because the language was spoken only in South Africa. They also found it insulting to be forced to use the language of the oppressor. During the demonstrations, police ¤red three hundred rounds into the crowd of students. By the end of the day there were ¤ftyfour dead and three hundred wounded. The next day, students returned to the streets, overturning vehicles and setting ¤re to school buildings. The skirmishes continued through July and August. On 4 and 5 August, the students tried to march from Soweto to Johannesburg to demand the release of youths detained after the initial rebellion of June 16.1 On 5 August, South African police killed three students and dispersed ¤ve thousand demonstrators in Soweto.2 Thousands of workers had stayed home in response to student demands for a boycott. The New York Times reported a 25- to 75-percent “absenteeism” rate in the workforce. The next day, South African police again opened ¤re on students in Soweto . The of¤cial toll from three days of rioting was four dead and thirty wounded. The rebellions then spread to Kimberly, where crowds reportedly stoned buses and cars on 8 September.3 Cape Town police also reportedly opened ¤re on demonstrators protesting the closing of a high school for “coloureds.” New ®ashpoints emerged at funerals as the skirmishes between the police and students continued. By 24 October, the New York Times was reporting that the of¤cial death toll had risen to 377 in the four months since the Soweto uprising began.4 Black groups disputed these numbers, however, arguing that the police had killed over four hundred in Soweto alone and that the total death toll at that point was closer to seven hundred.5 Yet again, the South African government responded to the protests with widespread arrests and detentions of black people. Over 2,400 were detained under security laws between June 1976 and September 1977. After the murder of Steve Biko in September 1977, the government banned most Black Consciousness organizations, including the South African Students’ Organization and the Christian Institute, headed by Byers Naude. Of¤cials also banned the most widely read black newspaper, the World, and detained its editor, Percy Quboza. The bannings failed to quell the resistance, however , as new opposition groups, such as the Congress of South African Students, AZAPO, and the Soweto Civic Association emerged. At the same time, over 6,000 youths left the country. Many went to ANC schools in Tanzania and guerrilla training camps in Angola. Anti-apartheid organizations around the world sounded fresh calls for cultural, economic, and political sanctions against apartheid. In July, the OAU released a statement during its annual Heads of State conference deploring the violence in South Africa and calling for renewed resistance. “The only effective guarantee for the African people of South Africa against the repetition of the massacre in Soweto is the launching of the armed struggle for the seizure of power by the people,” the report said.6 African Americans formed new groups and reorganized old ones to respond to the outrage. One such group was Blacks in Solidarity with South African Liberation, formed in Harlem to organize support for liberation movements. BISSAL was unique in that it was led by entertainers such as Dick Gregory. In one of its ¤rst actions, BISSAL called for a demonstration on 11 September to condemn the slaughter...