Soweto uprising: Children who marched against apartheid
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When South African schoolchildren marched in protest against having to study Afrikaans in 1976, they were gunned down by the police.
The killings sparked a cycle of protests across the country against the racist apartheid regime.
In 2010, march organiser Bongi Mkhabela told Alan Johnston about her memories of the Soweto uprising.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: Protestors on the march. Credit: Bongani Mnguni/CityPress/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.0 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:45.0 | We're taking you back nearly five decades to an event that shook the apartheid regime in South Africa to its foundations, the Soweto Uprising. |
| 0:55.0 | In 2010, Alan Johnston spoke to one of the organizers about that bloody but impactful time. |
| 1:02.0 | It's early on June 16th, 1976 and on Johannesburg's |
| 1:07.8 | outskirts the young people of the township of Soweto are about to make their |
| 1:12.2 | voices heard. In the hours ahead |
| 1:14.8 | demonstrating black school children will be fired on by police in scenes of |
| 1:20.2 | violence that will shock the world. A girl called Bongy and |
| 1:24.6 | Kabela will be among the protesters. She describes what she felt when the |
| 1:29.4 | security forces started shooting. It was fear, the kind of fear that you taste in your mouth. |
| 1:38.3 | It was anger, the kind of anger that almost blinds you and it is frustration, absolute frustration. But at the same time, |
| 1:49.6 | you know, adrenaline also carries you to just run and run for life. |
| 1:55.0 | Every aspect of Bongi and Cabela's childhood had been marked by the injustices of |
| 2:00.6 | apartheid, along with many other increasingly politicized young people, |
| 2:06.0 | she had decided that it was time to make a stand. |
| 2:09.0 | She was elected to represent her high school on a council that made preparations for a day of peaceful protest. |
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