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Unlock This CourseRemember, by the mid-1960s the ANC's leaders were in prison or abroad and there was almost no open resistance. The new challenge came from a different place: black university students.
Steve Biko was a medical student in Durban. He belonged to the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), which was open to all races but led by white students. Biko came to believe that white liberals, however kind, could not speak for black people. In 1969 he became the first president of the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), set up by black students who had walked away from NUSAS. Its slogan was 'Black man, you are on your own'.
Biko's set of ideas was called Black Consciousness. Its main points were:
Black Consciousness was about ideas and confidence, not bombs. In 1972 the Black People's Convention (BPC) was formed to carry the message from the universities to adults.
At first the government let SASO grow, because a blacks-only student body seemed to fit apartheid thinking. It soon changed its mind. In March 1973 Biko and other leaders were given banning orders. Biko was confined to King William's Town and could not speak in public or be quoted. By then his ideas had already reached school pupils through the South African Students' Movement (SASM).
Key terms:
Soweto was the huge group of African townships south-west of Johannesburg.
Pupils were already angry about Bantu Education. Secondary school numbers had grown fast, so classes were badly overcrowded, and the state spent more than ten times as much on a white child's schooling as on an African child's. Black Consciousness gave pupils the confidence to say so. In 1975 Mozambique and Angola won independence from Portugal, which showed that white rule could be beaten.
In 1974 the government ordered that half the subjects in African secondary schools, including maths, must be taught in Afrikaans. Few pupils or teachers spoke it well, so pupils feared failing their exams. To them it was also the language of the people who ran apartheid. From May 1976 pupils at some Soweto schools refused to go to lessons.
A SASM action committee, led by pupils such as Tsietsi Mashinini, planned a march for 16 June 1976. That morning between 10,000 and 20,000 pupils set off in school uniform for a rally at Orlando Stadium.
Police blocked the road in Orlando West. They fired tear gas and then live bullets. One of the first to die was Hector Pieterson, aged twelve. Sam Nzima, a photographer for The World newspaper, took a picture of the dying boy being carried by another pupil. It was printed around the globe.
Furious crowds burned government offices, beer halls and vehicles, and two white men were killed. Within days the protests had spread to townships across the country, and the unrest lasted into 1977. The government's own inquiry counted 575 people dead, most of them shot by the police.
Resistance came back to life after years of quiet. A new generation had lost its fear, and the townships were never fully calm again. Thousands of young people slipped across the border and many joined the ANC and MK in exile, giving them the recruits they badly needed.
In July 1976 it dropped the Afrikaans rule, a rare climbdown. It did not change apartheid itself. Instead it turned to force: thousands were detained without trial under laws such as the Terrorism Act, and many student leaders were jailed or fled.
The photograph of Hector Pieterson shocked the world. On 19 June 1976 the United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the South African government for the killings, and foreign investors again began to pull money out.
The government blamed Black Consciousness for Soweto. On 18 August 1977 Biko was stopped at a police roadblock near Grahamstown. He had broken his banning order by travelling. He was detained in Port Elizabeth under the Terrorism Act and suffered a serious head injury while being questioned by the security police. On 11 September he was driven about 1,100 kilometres to Pretoria in the back of a police vehicle. He died there on 12 September 1977, aged 30.
The Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, suggested Biko had died after a hunger strike and told a National Party meeting that the death 'leaves me cold'. Donald Woods, a white newspaper editor and friend of Biko, helped to bring out the truth: the medical evidence showed brain damage. Even so, the inquest in late 1977 ruled that no one was to blame.
The consequences were serious for both sides:
Don't say Biko led the Soweto march. He was banned and far away in King William's Town. His ideas inspired the pupils, who organised it themselves. Don't say Soweto was only about Afrikaans. The language rule was the trigger, but anger at Bantu Education lay behind it. And don't call Black Consciousness an armed movement or a part of the ANC.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
From a modern history textbook.
'On the morning of 16 June 1976 thousands of Soweto schoolchildren set out in their uniforms, singing as they walked. They carried nothing more dangerous than hand-painted placards. These boys and girls, some barely in their teens, had organised the march themselves and kept it in good order. When armed police blocked the road, they did not run but stood their ground. All they asked was to be taught in a language they could understand.'
What impression does the author give about the pupils who marched in Soweto on 16 June 1976? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that the Soweto pupils were brave, peaceful and innocent young people with a fair demand. The language makes them seem harmless: they were 'schoolchildren' in 'uniforms', 'singing as they walked', and 'some barely in their teens', which stresses how young they were. The phrase 'nothing more dangerous than hand-painted placards' underlines that they were no threat, and it is set against the 'armed police' to make the pupils look courageous when they 'stood their ground'. 'All they asked' makes their demand sound small and reasonable. The author stresses that the march was 'in good order' and leaves out the burning of buildings and the killings that followed the shooting, so the reader sees only admirable, peaceful children.
What lifts this to the top level: it names a clear impression and proves it from the author's choice of words, from what the author stresses and from what the author leaves out, instead of just retelling the extract.
Start with 'The author gives the impression that...' and one or two describing words, such as brave or peaceful. Then quote short phrases, two to five words each, and say what each one suggests. Finish with what the author chose to stress or leave out. You do not need your own knowledge of Soweto here, so don't retell the march. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (a): What Impression Does the Author Give?