what caused the sharpeville massacre

Improved homework resources designed to support a variety of curriculum subjects and standards. The moral outrage surrounding these events led the United Nations General Assembly to pronounce 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial . Many people need to know that indiviual have their own rights in laws and freedom . The ratification of these laws may have made the separate but equal rhetoric illegal for the U.S. but the citizens inside it still battled for their beliefs. [16], The Sharpeville massacre contributed to the banning of the PAC and ANC as illegal organisations. In March 1960, South African police shot dead 69 black protestors, sparking worldwide outrage . Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite. OHCHRs regional representative Abigail Noko used the opportunity to call on all decision-makers to give youth a seat at the decision-making table. A protest that had been scheduled three days earlier was planned for noon on Monday, May 4. As they attempted to disperse the crowd, a police officer was knocked down and many in the crowd began to move forward to see what had happened. When police opened . Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK. The march was also led by Clarence Makwetu, the Secretary of the PACs New Flats branch. At the annual conference of the African National Congress (ANC) held in Durban on 16 December 1959, the President General of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli, announced that 1960 was going to be the "Year of the Pass." By lunchtime, the crowd outside the police station had grown to an estimated 20,000 people. In my own research on international human rights law, I looked to complexity theory, a theory developed in the natural sciences to make sense of the ways that patterns of behaviour emerge and change, to understand the way that international human rights law had developed and evolved. Within hours the news of the killing at Sharpeville was flashed around the world. [2] In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre. Participants were instructed to surrender their reference books (passes) and invite arrest. 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. By the end of the day, 69 people lay dead or dying, with hundreds more injured. It was a system of segregation put in place by the National Party, which governed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. A deranged White man, David Pratt, made an assassination attempt on Dr. Verwoerd, who was seriously injured. On March 30, the South African government declared a state of emergency which made any protest illegal. Following the Sharpeville massacre, as it came to be known, the death toll rose to 69 and the number of injuries to 180. After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. A lot of Afrikaners felt a sense of guilt for the behavior they allowed to happen from their race towards another. "[6]:p.537, On 21 March 2002, the 42nd anniversary of the massacre, a memorial was opened by former President Nelson Mandela as part of the Sharpeville Human Rights Precinct.[22]. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. In 1960, states had no binding international human rights obligations and there were no oversight mechanisms. By comparing and contrasting the American Jim Crow Laws and South African apartheid, we have evidence that both nations constitutions led to discrimination, activism, reform and reconciliation. About 69 Blacks were killed and more than 180 wounded, some 50 women and children being among the victims. In conclusion; Sharpeville, the imposition of a state of emergency, the arrest of thousands of Black people and the banning of the ANC and PAC convinced the anti-apartheid leadership that non-violent action was not going to bring about change without armed action. Furthermore, during the nineties to the twenties, leaders of African Americans sought to end segregation in the South, as caused by Plessy v. Ferguson. Copyright 2023 United Nations in South Africa, Caption: Selinah Mnguni, a Sharpeville massacre survivor, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Black resistance began to gain more momentum and increasingly became more threatening. Dr. Verwoerd praised the police for their actions. When it seemed the whole group would cross, police took action, with mounted officers and volunteers arriving at 1:12 pm. Some 20,000 Blacks gathered near a police station at Sharpeville, located about 30 miles (50 km) south of Johannesburg. On 24 March 1960, in protest of the . [12], Many White South Africans were also horrified by the massacre. Eventually a few of the demonstrators dared to cross the street, led by James Forman who had organized the march. His colleagues followed suit and opened fire. Despite the Sharpeville massacre feeling seismic in its brutality, "we all thought at that moment that it would cause a change in the political situation in South Africa," said Berry - "it was really ten years before anything changed." . He was tricked into dispersing the crowd and was arrested by the police later that day. In the Black township of Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Afrikaner police open fire on a group of unarmed Black South African demonstrators, killing 69 people and wounding 180 in a hail of submachine-gun fire. This riot was planned to be a peaceful riot for a strike on an 8-hour day, ended up turning into a battle between protesters and the police. In 1960 it was the site of one of the earliest and most violent demonstrations against apartheid . Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The protesters responded by hurling stones (striking three policemen) and rushing the police barricades. On the morning of 21 March Robert Sobukwe left his house in Mofolo, a suburb of Soweto, and began walking to the Orlando police station. We need the voices of young people to break through the silence that locks in discrimination and oppression. As the number of UN members from Africa increased, the commission reversed its no power to act position and turned its attention to the human rights situation in South Africa. Its been 60 years since the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 unarmed civilians were killed by armed South African police on March 21 1960. [4] Leading up to the Sharpeville massacre, the National Party administration under the leadership of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd used these laws to enforce greater racial segregation[5] and, in 19591960, extended them to include women. On March 21, 1960. The ANC Vice-President, Oliver Tambo, was secretly driven across the border by Ronel Segal into the then British controlled territory of Bechunaland. The Apartheid was initiated as a ploy for Europeans to better control the exploited populations for economic gain, as maintaining tension between the different racial classifications diverted attention from the Europeans as it fed hatred between groups. 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. In 1946, the UN established the Commission on Human Rights, whose first job was to draft a declaration on human rights. Sobukwe was only released in 1969. Due to the illness, removals from Topville began in 1958. However, Foreign Consulates were flooded with requests for emigration, and fearful White South Africans armed themselves. Even so and estimated 2000 to 3000 people gathered on the Commons. 26 Black policemen and 365 Black civilians were injured no White police men were killed and only 60 were injured. Throughout the 1950s, South African blacks intensified their resistance against the oppressive apartheid system. As part of its response, the General Assembly tasked the UN Commission on Human Rights to prepare the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the first global human rights treaty. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Accessible across all of today's devices: phones, tablets, and desktops. Half a century has passed but memories of the Sharpeville massacre still run deep. "[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. One way of accomplishing this was by instilling laws thatd force segregation, classification, educational requirements, and economic purposes. Eyewitness accounts of the Sharpeville massacre 1960 The day of the Massacre, mourning the dead and getting over the shock of the event Baileys African History Archive (BAHA) Tom Petrus, author of 'My Life Struggle', Ravan Press. The Minister of Justice called for calm and the Minister of Finance encouraged immigration. [10], PAC actively organized to increase turnout to the demonstration, distributing pamphlets and appearing in person to urge people not to go to work on the day of the protest. Some estimates put the size of the crowd at 20,000. The event also played a role in South Africa's departure from the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961. This affirmed that the elimination of racial discrimination was a global challenge that affronted the respect and dignity of all human beings. Find out more about our work towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The Sharpeville massacre also touched off three decades of protest in South Africa, ultimately leading to freedom for Nelson Mandela, who had spent 27 years in prison. Nearly 300 police officers arrived to put an end to the peaceful protest. Many of the civilians present attended voluntarily to support the protest, but there is evidence that the PAC also used coercive means to draw the crowd there, including the cutting of telephone lines into Sharpeville, and preventing bus drivers from driving their routes. 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. All that changed following the worlds moral outrage at the killings. These protestors included a large number of northern college students. It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. In the 1960s, many of the colonial nations of Africa were gaining independence. Some of them remain in prison", "Sharpeville Memorial, Theunis Kruger Street, Dicksonville, Sharpville ABLEWiki", Calls for inquiry into Israels Gaza killings, Storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sharpeville_massacre&oldid=1140778365, Killings by law enforcement officers in South Africa, Short description is different from Wikidata, Use South African English from April 2016, All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:08. 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). During the shooting about 69 black people were killed. The rally began peacefully, the iron bell was rung (usually it was rung to signal victories in football games) and one speaker started to speak. It was adopted on 21 December 1965. This detailed act separated tribes based on ethnics; consequently, further detailing segregation amongst the natives . The Sharpeville Massacre On the morning of March 21, 1960, several thousand residents of Sharpeville marched to the township's police station. A few days later, on 30 March 1960, Kgosana led a PAC march of between 30 000-50 000 protestors from Langa and Nyanga to the police headquarters in Caledon Square. Please note: Text within images is not translated, some features may not work properly after translation, and the translation may not accurately convey the intended meaning. But in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, the UN adopted a more interventionist stance to the apartheid state. At its inaugural session in 1947, the UN Commission on Human Rights had decided that it had no power to take any action in regard to any complaints concerning human rights. It also came to symbolize that struggle. Corrections? In Cape Town, an estimated 95% of the African population and a substantial number of the Coloured community joined the stay away. Sharpeville Massacre, The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day [online], available at: africanhistory.about.com [accessed 10 March 2009]|Thloloe, J. Other protests around the country on 21 March 1960. A week later, a breakaway group from the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) held its first conference in Johannesburg. Only the four Native Representatives and members of the new Progressive Party voted against the Bill. All Rights Reserved. In March 1960, Robert Sobukwe, a leader in the anti-apartheid Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) organized the towns first anti-apartheid protest. Amid confusion, two shots were fired into the air by somebody in the crowd. The two causes went hand in hand in this, rocketing in support and becoming the main goal of the country - the end of segregation was the most dire problem that the Civil Rights Movement needed to solve. (2000) Focus: 'Lest We Forget', Sunday World, 19 March. (2007), New History of South Africa. Policemen in Cape Town were forcing Africans back to work with batons and sjamboks, and four people were shot and killed in Durban. Now aged 84, Selinah says she is still proud of her efforts to end apartheid. Along the way small groups of people joined him. Baileys African History Archive (BAHA)Crowds fleeing from bullets on the day of the Massacre. Kgosana agreed to disperse the protestors in if a meeting with J B Vorster, then Minister of Justice, could be secured. One of the insights has been that international law does not change unless there is some trigger for countries to change their behaviour. [3], South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of African South Africans into cities. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The adoption of the convention was quickly followed by two international covenants on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights in 1966, introduced to give effect to the rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And with the 24th Amendment, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Voting Rights Act of 1965 being ratified, the civil rights movement and the fight to end segregation reached its legal goal (infoplease.com). At this point the National Guard chose to disperse the crowd, fearing that the situation might get out of hand and grow into another violent protest. March 21 Massacre in Sharpeville In the Black township of Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, South Africa, Afrikaner police open fire on a group of unarmed Black South African demonstrators,. Across the street came 40 or so students who planned on joining the group en route to the Courthouse. Krog was one of these Afrikaners. Perseverance and determination are also needed to build on the lessons learnedfrom the Sharpeville tragedy and repair the injustices of the past. 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. As the number of UN members from Africa increased, the commission reversed its no power to act position and turned its attention to the human rights situation in South Africa. Take a minute to check out all the enhancements! These two industries experienced rapid growth in the immediate aftermath of World War II and continued growing into the 1950s and 1960s. Other PAC members tried to stop bus drivers from going on duty and this resulted in a lack transport for Sharpeville residents who worked in Vereeniging. A United Nations photograph by Kay Muldoon, Courtesy of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, SATIS (Southern Africa - the Imprisoned Society). Selinah was shot in her leg but survived the massacre. Later, in the fifties and the sixties, these same goals, enlign poll taxes and literacy tests, were once again fought for by African American leaders, through advocacy and agitation. This shows a significant similarity in that both time periods leaders attempted to achieve the goal of ending. We hope you and your family enjoy the NEW Britannica Kids. Copyright 20102023, The Conversation Media Group Ltd. March 21 is a public holiday in South Africa in commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre. Early on the 21st the local PAC leaders first gathered in a field not far from the Sharpeville police station, when a sizable crowd of people had joined them they proceeded to the police station - chanting freedom songs and calling out the campaign slogans "Izwe lethu" (Our land); "Awaphele amapasti" (Down with passes); "Sobukwe Sikhokhele" (Lead us Sobukwe); "Forward to Independence,Tomorrow the United States of Africa.". The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on March 21, 1960, in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. During those five months roughly 25,000 people were arrested throughout the nation. The incident resulted in the largest number of South African deaths (up to that point) in a protest against apartheid . Sobukwe was only released in 1969. The term human rights was first used in the UN Charter in 1945. Britannica does not review the converted text. Sharpeville is a township near Vereeniging, in the Gauteng province of South Africa . p. 334- 336|Historical Papers Archive of the University of the Witwatersrand [online] Accessed at: wits.ac.za and SAHA archive [link no longer available]. The incident resulted in the largest number of South African deaths (up to that point) in a protest against apartheid. The Sharpeville massacre. Just after 1pm, there was an altercation between the police officer in charge and the leaders of the demonstration. It was one of the first and most violent demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa. Plaatjie, T. (1998) Focus: 'Sharpeville Heroes Neglected', The Sowetan, 20 March.|Reverend Ambrose Reeves (1966). Police officers attempted to use tear gas to repel these advances, but it proved ineffectual, and the police fell back on the use of their batons. 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. The same safe and trusted content for explorers of all ages. And then there are those who feel deeply involved and moved, but also powerless to deal with the enormity of the situation (Krog 221). 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. But attempts to transform this non-binding moral declaration into a binding legal code were immediately bogged down in cold war disputes. [21], In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that the police actions constituted "gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people. [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. The Sharpeville massacre was reported worldwide, and received with horror from every quarter. The quest for international support, mass mobilization, armed operations, and underground organization became the basis for the ANCs Four Pillars of Struggle. Similarly, African American leaders from the fifties to the sixties also fought for the end of segregation, in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. Police were temporarily paralyzed with indecision. 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. These resolutions established two important principles: that the human rights provisions in the UN Charter created binding obligations for member states, and that the UN could intervene directly in situations involving serious violations of human rights. The policemen were apparently jittery after a recent event in Durban where nine policemen were shot. Furthermore, a new police station was created, from which the police were energetic to check passes, deporting illegal residents, and raiding illegal shebeens. The row of graves of the 69 people killed by police at the Sharpeville Police Station on 21 March 1960. International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, "Outside South Africa there were widespread reactions to Sharpeville in many countries which in many cases led to positive action against South Africa"., E.g., "[I]mmediately following the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, over 1000 students demonstrated in Sydney against the apartheid system"., United Nations Security Council Resolution 610, United Nations Security Council Resolution 615, "The Sharpeville Massacre A watershed in South Africa", "The photos that changed history Ian Berry; Sharpeville Massacre", "Sharpeville Massacre, The Origin of South Africa's Human Rights Day", "Influential religious leader with 70-years in ministry to be laid to rest", "The Sharpeville Massacre - A watershed in South Africa", "Macmillan, Verwoerd and the 1960 'Wind of Change' Speech", "Naming history's forgotten fighters: South Africa's government is setting out to forget some of the alliance who fought against apartheid. For them to gather means violence. Matthews called on all South Africans to mark a national day of mourning for the victims on the 28 March. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}264118S 275219E / 26.68833S 27.87194E / -26.68833; 27.87194. It is also a day to reflect on the progress that has been made in ensuring basic human rights for all South Africans, as enshrined in our Constitution. On that day, demonstrations against the pass laws, which restricted the rights of the majority black population in apartheid South Africa, began in the early morning in Sharpeville, a township in Transvaal. Weve been busy, working hard to bring you new features and an updated design. 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