Voices of June 16: Our parents came back to find the township on fire

Memories of the day 40 years ago, on June 16, when students took the first tentative steps towards freedom, are etched in the minds of those who were there and who led the uprising that shook South Africa.

sub_head_start Township on fire sub_head_end

In 1976, Popo Molefe, former premier of North West, was at Naledi High School and a member of the South African Students’ Movement action committee, which planned and led the June 16 protests.

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“I woke up very early to go and join the assembly of youth at  Naledi High School. I was one of those leading the march to Orlando Stadium.

“The real fight with the police started at Naledi High School on  June 8 when they came to arrest  student leader Enos Ngutshane. I was the head boy at the time and was not going to let that happen.

“While the principal was negotiating with the police, we organised boys to go to their vehicle. It was a yellow VW Beetle  and we overturned the car and set it alight, so they had to be rescued at our school. Enos was arrested later, on June 14,  for public violence.

“It was against that backdrop that June 16 took place.

“On that morning we left our school and proceeded to Morris Isaacson [school], collecting kids from secondary schools to join the march, which was initially intended to be peaceful. Along the way there were a few skirmishes with the police but we were a large group and they did not stop us.

“Near Dube, at the YWCA centre, as we were coming out of Phefeni station, we found a big confrontation with the police and saw a young boy being carried who had been shot, and that was Hector Pieterson.

“The mood was one of anger and the students were really determined to fight, with a spirit of no surrender. All hell broke loose at that time and there was mayhem.

“The youth were facing the police with stones and protecting themselves will rubbish-bin lids. They attacked the beer halls and bottle stores, which were a source of income for the urban Bantu councils and symbols of oppression.

block_quotes_start Our parents were taken by surprise and our neighbours did not know. They came back to find the township on fire block_quotes_end

“On Monday June 13, when we had the meeting to plan the march at Orlando High School, some of us argued it should not be one day, it should be sustained, but our argument did not prevail.

“The violence of the police  catapulted the protests into many days of action and from that day onwards there were pitched battles every day in every area.

“Each day a new township joined in solidarity with the youth of Soweto and this turned into massive, rolling mass action as far as Port Elizabeth, East London and the Western Cape.

“Our parents were taken by surprise and our neighbours did not know. They came back to find the township on fire.”

- Interview by Claire Keeton

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sub_head_start 'Our town was 1,000km from Soweto but may as well have been on the moon' sub_head_end

Sunday Times  picture researcher Aubrey Paton was a schoolgirl in Grahamstown when Soweto erupted 

There was always chapel on Thursday and every girl in the school – some 300 from kindergarten to matric – had to attend, regardless of denomination.

Father Silva (my school was frightfully Anglican high church), the teachers in their various academic robes, and a long crocodile of perfectly groomed young ladies — regular hair, nail and knicker inspections ensured this — waited beside immaculate green lawns for the chapel bell to ring.

The rule was silence, but who can stop girls whispering – especially matric girls? And we were a special matric class, the Centennial Matrics; 1976 was my school’s Centenary.

It was a chilly June morning but we were warm in our imported woollen uniforms: I was giving my shoes a surreptitious shine on my fawn tights – woe betide any girl with dull leather – when an outrageous rumour reached me.

block_quotes_start The unrest was spreading like cheap margarine on stale government loaf: the papers painted a grim and terrifying picture block_quotes_end

Some of the sophisticated boarders from The Reef and abroad were murmuring about a "Native" uprising in Johannesburg: they had heard black pupils were running riot in the location, burning clinics and schools and churches, and massacring every white they saw.

Our town was 1 000 kilometres from Soweto but may as well have been on the moon: with a really powerful wireless we sometimes got LMRadio, but usually it was just SABC’s A Service and Springbok Radio, neither of which was renowned for accuracy or impartiality.

The nearest daily paper reached town only after 8am and for the many, like my parents, who subscribed to a Joburg paper, on-the-spot reports of the Soweto Uprising would arrive only on Friday 18th.

But then, as now, the grapevine was the fastest news medium and although nothing was said in the chapel service, rumours continued through Latin, English, Maths and History, and every story was more alarming.

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The only adult willing to discuss the aberration from the Vaal was our Afrikaans teacher, a delightful Hollander who took it personally that "Rock", as we called Afrikaans, was so resented and loathed.

Dr van der Vliet spoke about the frustration black children felt, forced to do Afrikaans not only as a language but as the medium of instruction for their entire, sub-standard education.

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But by then we’d heard of the deaths of nuns and priests, doctors, nurses and teachers, and the valiant efforts of our brave police to rescue any whites unfortunate enough to be trapped in a township teaming with rabid killers, so we were not predisposed to be sympathetic.

At home that night the wireless was full of terrible tales – near hysterical vituperation from Springbok and graver but no less alarming reports from the A Service.

And the unrest was spreading like cheap margarine on stale government loaf: the papers, tardy with the news as it was by the time it reached us, painted a grim and terrifying picture. From Pretoria to Cape Town, in locations large and small, the "Natives" were revolting.

My school held centenary celebrations in the winter of 1976: it was a Big Deal to us at the time but now all I recall is standing in that perfectly formed crocodile, hearing about the revolution fomented by another matric class, a world away from manicured lawns and designer uniforms.

sub_head_start Tyrants fall sub_head_end

Macbeth was a tyrant and tyrants fall,  says Welcome Msomi, the creator of the internationally acclaimed uMabatha — a Zulu adaptation of Shakespeare’s play that  has been performed around the world. On June 16 1976 he  was in Spoleto, Italy, with the cast of uMabatha.

It was siesta time and people called us, knowing we were South Africans, to watch TV, that something was going on in Soweto. We were surprised at how the uprising was happening.

In 1975, we had staged uMabatha in the Jabulani Amphitheatre in Soweto and other township venues before taking the production overseas again. Kids came to see the school shows during the day and the evenings and there was never a sign that something so huge would happen.

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Part of what was discussed was that Macbeth was a tyrant and how he would be destroyed and killed. There were some similarities, but I don’t recall the students showing they were very angry.

For the parents, June 16 was a shock — children and young people had not communicated with them. They knew that if they talked to their parents they would be against it, if they made a noise it would be stopped, so they rather said nothing and prepared the demonstration. That was the success of 1976.

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Some of my friends had businesses in Soweto and were afraid of what the young people were doing and of being arrested.

After the tour I returned to the [then] University of Natal, where I was part of a mixed group of playwrights, directors and actors who formed an organisation.

At that time two guys I did not know asked to meet me at the Hotel Umlazi and I said OK. They said: “We like what you do, we are proud of your work, so we want to warn you, we have been assigned to look after you.”

I said: “For what?”  They said: “Your name is part of this new group and the [government] does not like it.” I said to myself right then: “I am going to the States to perform and I will never come back to South Africa.”

In 1978, I had a production at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and then in South Carolina in the US and I stayed on [becoming a successful producer and playwright on Broadway].

South Africa was always in the media and we were creating these stories, also about young people and the uprising which came like wildfire.

- As told to Claire Keeton

sub_head_start The people of Soweto showed such compassion sub_head_end

Duma ka Ndlovu,  writer and producer of the hit soapie Muvhango, was already a minor celebrity in 1976 among the high school  pupils of Soweto —  a position that catapulted him into helping student leaders evade the police.

I was a journalist at the World newspaper and was popular among the students for writing a double-page feature on school sports for the weekend edition.

I was 19 when I developed this feature, maybe as a way of chasing girls. On Wednesday afternoons I would leave work early and go to Soweto to watch matches, and this developed into a passion.

The students knew me and would come looking for me if something was happening.

But they kept their June 16 plans a secret even from me and another trusted journalist, my friend Gabu Tugwana of the Rand Daily Mail.

block_quotes_start Soweto was being turned on its head. In my entire 61 years I have never seen anything like that or been part of anything like that block_quotes_end

They refused to tell me what they talked about on June 13  but they told me that I must come to Morris Isaacson [High School] at 8am on the 16th. When I asked why, they said: “No, Bra Duma, we don’t want anyone making a mistake.” But they told me I can’t miss out.

 I could not secure a car and photographer from my news editor without a reason, so that morning I was assigned to cover the opening of a children’s home.

At about 10am there was a commotion and we ran outside. We had a bird’s-eye view of Orlando West and it was chaos. I asked for a phone and called the office.

The news editor told me  to drop everything and go to cover the action. I  couldn’t help saying “I told you” as I put the phone down.

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Hector Pieterson had already been rushed to hospital by the time I arrived there.

Soweto was being turned on its head. In my entire 61 years I have never seen anything like that or been part of anything like that. It was amazing. I was allowed in close proximity because of my relationship, and  Tsietsi Mashinini came to my car to talk.

Every day after this student leaders came to me with press releases that I rewrote to counter police propaganda.

From June 16 I was ferrying the student leadership to secret places. After the marches there was a massive manhunt for them and I felt it was my responsibility. We had cars on standby, company cars and hired cars, which we weren’t sure we could raise money for.

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There was a R500 bounty put on Tsietsi’s head. At the time my mother earned about R20 a month, so we were shocked at so much money. At a meeting the student leadership decided he had to leave the country.

I then ran a front-page story in the Weekend World with a photo claiming that Mashinini had skipped the country, prompting the police to drop their guard and take down the roadblocks.

The next morning he escaped to Botswana.

However, someone revealed that the article was fabricated on purpose.

When I was arrested and taken to Protea police station I said I had no way of knowing the truth. I told them I wanted to make the story more credible, which is why I put in that he had called me from Botswana.

The people of Soweto showed such compassion. There was incredible loyalty and support.  Grandmothers and grandfathers gave up their homes for students wanted by the police. They embraced them and not once did anyone call the police.

I was arrested and taken to John Vorster Square, then moved to Modderbee prison where [Percy] Qoboza, Tugwana and others were being held.

In three months I had no visits but finally my mother was allowed to see me.

She was one of the most conservative people I knew. I walked slowly to see her and then she said: “You kids are doing a wonderful job. You are going to free us.”

*  Ndlovu wrote a play for his mother in 1984. On his release, Ndlovu escaped to Lesotho and then to the US where he spent 15 years in exile. 

- As told to Claire Keeton

sub_head_start The travails of a white South African selling oranges in Britain sub_head_end

Journalist Paddi Clay recalls the shame and frustration of being a young tourist overseas amid the 1976 student protests in her  home country. 

A Radio Luxembourg English-language bulletin gave me the news as I sat in a garret in the Marais district in Paris.

The revolution back home had begun.

They didn’t phrase it quite like that but what, as students, we had anticipated as inevitable, seemed to have started.

Thousands of young black people had begun protesting against Afrikaans in the township streets and the police were shooting them.

block_quotes_start The Soweto shootings intensified the anti-South African feeling that had been percolating in Europe and simmering in Britain block_quotes_end

There was a heatwave that year in Europe. Fish floated belly up in the Seine and the Piscine Deligny on the Left Bank was a seething mass of bodies lolling in lukewarm water. In a café downstairs from our garret we hashed over what little we knew about what was happening with Antoine, a dreamboat anti-apartheid activist.

I thought about returning home, shooting at police and soldiers from the rooftops (I’d just read Liam O’Flaherty’s short story, The Sniper, and I was a romantically inclined 21), but I couldn’t. I was in Europe courtesy of an open ticket paid by Outspan and was contracted to start promoting and selling South African oranges to the hot, holidaying hordes in Britain in a few weeks. My mother would expect me to honour my contract and I needed the money.

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Britain was the last European country market left for the Outspan summer-season promotion that had sent hundreds of white South African girls off to Europe since the ’60s to charm the locals into consuming the country’s Outspan-branded fruit.

Hounded out of Europe proper the year before by anti-apartheid campaigners, Outspan’s promotion team in 1976 was down to three South Africans for Britain.

Apparently we’d been selected from dozens of other applicants because of our personalities and healthy looks. No one had asked us any political questions and we didn’t have to parade in swimsuits. All three of us had applied with one aim — to get our hands on an otherwise out-of-reach plane ticket to Europe and some pounds.

The Soweto shootings intensified the anti-South African feeling that had been percolating in Europe and simmering in Britain. It hit us when we entered Britain with our South African passports and our work permits issued by the SA Co-operative Citrus Exchange office in England. We were locked up in interview rooms at immigration until our permits could be verified.

Maybe we were suspected of being the vanguard of a sea of white South Africans fleeing to safety.

At Berkhamsted headquarters we were given a somewhat counterproductive instruction to “keep a low profile” as we hit our promotional route between the north of England and Wales.

It was clearly an impossible instruction to carry out. We were travelling with a huge, branded, hot-air balloon; two pub-brawl-inclined pilots; a round, bright-orange car; a large, blue, juice-squeezing van; and each of us, nicknamed by the leering pilots — Lemon, Orange and Grapefruit — was required to wear a curly, orange nylon wig.

block_quotes_start We  told them what it was like to love your country and despise the government and the system              block_quotes_end

This bizarre marketing tool was apparently, and even more bizarrely, inspired by the story that red-haired Nell Gwynn, King Charles II’s  mistress, had been an orange seller.

Luckily for Outspan, and for us, many of the feral children and much of the British public we encountered in the Nissen huts of the Pontins holiday camps and seared-by-the-sun seaside resorts believed the oranges we were selling  were from Spain, confused us with the Israelis and their Jaffas, or simply didn’t have a clue or care as to what was happening in South Africa.

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But down at the docks, unionists were barring  imports of Outspan-branded oranges, and we were soon receiving the citrus exchange’s  almost unknown Odda label, which it used for secondary-quality fruit, and now, for boycott busting.

And, one night as Stanley Uys filed a report for ITN, and the iconic Sam Nzima picture of Hector Pieterson in Mbuyisa Makhubo’s arms hung on the television screen in our motorway motel room, there was hammering on our door.

“Are you the South Africans?” three young brown men barked as we opened up.

“We’ve come to talk to you about your racist, killer government.”

“Come in,” we said, clutching our wine glasses, and our tissues to our tear-stained faces. “We’re just as sad and angry as you are.”

The fight went out of them.

We offered cheap wine, they sat down on the floor with us, we talked, argued, agreed and told them what it was like to love your country and despise the government and the system, as the black and white images of much braver young people, defying and dying, played on the screen.

Towards the end of that year I came home, my politics a little clearer, and began my career as a journalist. Outspan’s promotions petered out and stopped completely in the ’80s.

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sub_head_start 'A leader and a jolly child' sub_head_end

On the corner of Klipspruit Valley and Khumalo roads in Soweto, less than a kilometre from the Hector Pieterson Museum, is a statue of a young schoolboy. Standing tall, dressed in a uniform, with his hand up and smiling, the depiction of Hastings Ndlovu, the first child shot 40 years ago on June 16, is as his family remembers him: “a leader and a jolly child”.

“He was shot early on that morning, taken out by a policeman . . .  a sniper. The bullet that killed him was between his eyes,”  says Granny Seape, one of his three surviving sisters.

But it was only five days after his death that the Ndlovu family finally came to learn of the 17-year-old’s death.

"There were five children in the family; we had two brothers and three sisters. Hastings was the last born. There were three girls in-between: Jeanette, Thandi and myself,” she says.

All three girls were in university in 1976 and we had no clue what was happening in Soweto on June 16. "Thandi and I left Fort Hare on the 15th for the normal break, not because of the uprisings. When we were travelling through the Transvaal, we started seeing buildings on fire and smoke.  It was then that we realised that there had been trouble.”

block_quotes_start You are looking for a child, thinking you will find him alive. You are told to go to the mortuary to identify his body block_quotes_end

As the siblings drew closer to Soweto, they realised that “something had happened” and they were looking forward to seeing their younger brother who was known for his storytelling skills.

 “We couldn’t wait to get home and find out from him what had happened because we knew that he would give us a blow by blow account with  embellishments . . .  he told stories with a huge inflation rate,” she says laughing as she remembers “Hassie”.

But when the sister got home in the early hours of June 17, their brother was not home. “My father said he hadn’t come home but thought he had gone to spend time with my aunt who used to live in Tladi. Hastings liked to hang out there.”

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But after two days with no sight of Hastings, the family started to worry. “My mom said it can’t be possible that he hasn’t come back. Somebody was dispatched to go check, but my aunt had also not seen him.” she says.

The  family started searching frantically for Hastings.

Eventually their worst fears were realised.  “When I got to the hospital with my mother, one of the nurses didn’t realise that one of us was the mother of Hastings because my mother was very tiny."

An elderly nurse finally broke the news to them. “She came and said: "Are you guys with anybody older and I told her: ‘This is my mother’.  They then put us in a separate room and said that Hastings is one of the corpses that were lying at the bottom of the pile at the Bara hospital,” says Seape, remembering “the piles and piles of bodies at police stations and hospitals.”

“We drove back home and when we got to the gate, my mom actually collapsed. 

"That was the beginning of the end. My mother never recovered from that experience.” 

Martha Annie Nldovu had said these words about the death of her son: "You are looking for a child, thinking you will find him alive. You are told to go to the mortuary to identify his body. Oh lord, help me forget these things. Teach me to forgive."

- Interviewed by Thembalethu Zulu

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sub_head_start "They threw teargas at us and we were throwing rocks at them" sub_head_end

It was painful when I started working here because I remembered what happened, says Judy Makhene, the assistant archivist at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Soweto. 

Fifty-nine--year-old Makhene, was a form three learner at Thesele Secondary School when Soweto erupted back in 1976.

“They fetched us from our school and we met near Orlando West Station. When we got to Phefeni Primary that’s where we heard the commotion.  It was war. They threw teargas at us and we were throwing rocks at them,” she says of the confrontation with police.

Fearing for her life, Makhene says she then ran to a nearby relative’s house in Vilakazi.  “There I changed from my uniform and put on my relative’s clothes because they were shooting anyone in school uniform.

block_quotes_start We used to use [dustbin lids] as bulletproof cover. They are very strong. The one we got just had a dent, no hole block_quotes_end

"I then asked for a lift from my cousin who was driving back into town, but we were stopped at a roadblock because they were looking for students. They couldn't tell if I was a student or not. They wasted about 30 minutes at that roadblock. They were stopping everyone.

 “I didn’t go back to school until 1977.  Some of my friends were injured, some, I don’t know where they went …”

"I still remember seeing students walking around with the head of somebody they had killed on a stick. I saw it.  They were parading it around."

These days, the former pre-school teacher is now helping to preserve the memory of that fateful day. 

Donations to the museum include clothes worn by people on June 16, South African police uniforms and even a cracked board carried by protesting students with the inscription: "To hell with Afrikaans."

She vividly remembers somebody bringing in a dustbin lid. "We used to use those as bulletproof cover. They are very strong. The one we got just had a dent, no hole."

- Interviewed by Thembalethu Zulu