Do you know what #YouthDay is all about?

Today marks 40 years since the day which changed the socio-political landscape of our country.

As we commemorate Youth Day, it’s interesting to look back at the events which led to this day.

The events could be traced back to the implementation of the Bantu Education Act in 1953 over 20 years prior to the uprisings. With the racial segregation of education, it meant that black learners were offered an education that was meant to keep them away from thoughts that would be subversive and maintain them as subservient members of society whose role would be nothing beyond labourer and servant.

This, coupled with the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, as well as the formation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), helped to raise the political awareness of students in the 1970s. When Afrikaans and English were together announced as the language of instruction in schools in 1974, it marked the start of students mobilising themselves to oppose this move.

By June 16, 1976 it is believed that between 3000 and 10 000 students from high schools around Soweto had been mobilised by SASO to march peacefully and demonstrate against the latest instruction given by the government. The students’ march was meant to have them end up in a rally at Orlando Stadium.

The learners walked from Orlando West Secondary School in Vilakazi Street and planned to walk peacefully to the stadium but they never made it that far.

According to reports the police had formed a wall facing the pupils and warned them to disperse. This was met with resistance. Suddenly teargas was fired into the crowd of students and police dogs released. In the chaos, children ran back and forth, throwing stones at the police – who fired more teargas.

One of the first casualties was 12-year-old Hector Pieterson, who can be seen in the iconic image taken by then The World photographer, Sam Nzima. This set off a day filled with activities which saw students targeting apartheid symbols such as administrative offices, government buses and vehicles and municipal beer halls – they were first looted and then set alight.

The aftermath left the townships looking like a natural disaster had swept through it with dead bodies and burnt-out shops, buildings and cars across the township. The violence spread to Alexandra the following day and across the country by June 18. By the end of 1976 more than 500 people had been killed across South Africa and over 3 000 had been severely injured – most of them aged under 23.

Although international solidarity movements pressured the government to change its policies, they remained unchanged throughout the 1980s and changes were only seen in the following decade with the unbanning of resistance movements in the 1990s.

Although this brought along several positive changes such as teachers being allowed to chose their own medium of instruction, the construction of more schools and a training college in Soweto, one of the most significant changes which occurred was that black people were given permanent status as city dwellers and did not have to return to the homelands.

This was, however, a bitter sweet victory for black people as the government gave the police power to detain people without trial. This resulted in thousands of people being arrested and tortured. This resulted in the young people dropping out of school and leaving their birth country feeling disillusioned with the state of affairs and joined military training camps in neighbouring countries.

Most of the exiles did return to the country after 1994 with the birth of the new democracy.

The events of what started as a peaceful demonstration on a Wednesday morning in June became one of the most significant events in South Africa’s history. The Hector Pieterson Museum was opened on Youth Day in 2002 – it is a  place where the youth of 1976 are celebrated, commemorated and honoured, lest we forget how far we have come as a country.

Information obtained from www.sahistory.org.za and www.southafrica.info