Kekeletso Mphuthi
Human Rights Day (21 March, the date of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960)
During the Apartheid era in South Africa, black people were oppressed beyond humane standards. They were deprived of racial equality with the whites. Also, they were exploited off from their land. Furthermore, they were restricted from certain privileges. All this caused retaliation by the blacks both politically and socially, and the eventual result was the Sharpeville Massacre.
The Sharpeville massacre was a haunting historical response by black people against the Apartheid oppression. For almost fifty years black South Africans had strived for their struggle against oppression and exploitation with the greatest patience. They had put their
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Then on March 21, 1960, the people of Sharpeville began to move up Seiso Street toward the police station at the top end of the township. It was said that the Congress leaders wanted everyone to go there and get them arrested for not carrying their passes. People crowded around the high security fence and were chanting and singing. On the other side of the fence were armed policemen lined up and ready to shoot and to the sides of the crowd were two rock-hard cars equipped with machine guns. People arrived in masses with only faith at hand. At exactly 1:50 P.M. there was uproar at the right side of the gate, it seemed as though a fat woman had been bumped by a police car as it tried to drive through the gate. Immediately after this there were chattering noises within the crowd. The police started shooting at crowd. People were being shot in the head. A survivor of this tragic day, Michael Zondo, a school teacher, recalls seeing brains flying everywhere in front of him, skulls bursting wide open. The crowd spread quickly and people began running in a panic. It was a moment of total chaos.
Suddenly it was all over, 69 deaths and 180 sufferers, later the Sharpeville Massacre had come to an end. There is no memorial to the Sharpeville Massacre as there is to the women and children who died in the Boer concentration camps, but it holds the same symbolic place in the pilgrimage of deaths of
The Everett massacre took place November 5,1916 and took place in Everett washington it was the biggest battle of labor unions. The Everett massacre was a conflict between local authorities and members of the industrial workers of the world (IWW) commonly called “Wobblies”. Everett washington was in a serious depression.there was ongoing confrontation between commercial interests, business labor organizers. There had been a number of labor -organized rallies and speeches in the street. These were opposed by local law enforcement, witch was on the side of business.
On April 20, 1914 a build up to tensions between union strikers and militia directed by the Rockefeller Coal Company came to a climax when the make shift town, called White City was attacked by militia. The Ludlow massacre was a build up of many different issues between the owners of the mines and the miners. Labor problems such as paternalism, lack of enforcement on current labor laws, and the slow recovery from the depression of 1890 all contributed to the actions of the Ludlow massacre in Colorado and the violence that was used after.
Did you know, the bloodiest labor confrontation (The Everett Massacre) occurred in Washington state, on November 5th, 1916? Well, it’s true! That Sunday, a group called the Wobblies went on ships from Seattle, Washington to Everett, Washington. The biggest causes of the Everett Massacre are assumptions, fear, and most importantly, dissatisfaction.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the killing of about 120 emigrants who were crossing Southern Utah September 1857.After the immagrants left Arkansas,the francher party ran into kansas and Nebraska territory before going into Utah territory.When they got to Utah the francher part passed fort bridger and Salt lake city.Traveling South west until they reached Ceder city.That city was the last stop before they went to California.While in ceder city the party tried to buy grain and supplies but the mormons refused to sale the supplies and grain to the francher party.Because of the mormons suspicion of aiding or helping potential enemies.
On January 1, 1923, In a very small black neighborhood called Rosewood. A rumor started that Fannie Taylor, a white female, had been sexually harassed by a black man in her house. She claimed that a black man had gotten into her house and assaulted her, but she had no obvious injuries other than her word that she was unconscious for a long time.
Rather than promoting the integration of Blacks into White society, they preached complete isolation, even to the extent of ANC members joining the PAC party in 1959, after saying they were influenced by ‘White Communists’. However, despite this, similar to the ANC, opposition to apartheid wasn’t all as successful as they could have been. The most prominent form of opposition presented by the PAC was Sharpesville, later dubbed ‘The Sharpseville massacre’. Similar to the ANC’s ‘Defiance campaign’, this campaign had originally been intended to be peaceful, merely approaching the police station singing and showing they are ready to be arrested. However, it is assumed that following the prior campaign, law enforcement were on high alert for these protests. 69 people were killed, with all of them being Black. This still didn’t have any form of affect on the opposition of apartheid. However, it could be assumed that this reached some form of international news, informing other members of the UN, etc, to the racial crises occurring in South
During the Reconstruction era, former slaves received much violence from whites. About 5,000 blacks were murdered by whites from 1865-1866. White mobs killed 34 blacks in New Orleans and 46 blacks in Memphis during race riots in 1866. Blacks were also subjected to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret white organization. That was founded in 1865 or 1866 in Tennessee. The members of the Ku Klux Klan wore white hoods and robes and put white sheets over their horses. Blacks and white sympathizers were beaten and murdered by the Klan. The Klan did whatever it could to prevent blacks from exercising their rights. By terrorizing blacks, they kept them from voting. These attacks couldn’t even be stopped by the U.S. Army troops.
Blacks were treated with tremendous cruelty in many different ways. Black lives before the civil rights movement were treated cruel and unfair. African Americans did not have the same opportunities that they have today. Before the movement they could not get an education, a good job, or a place to live. These men and women who worked for white landowners were pretty much treated like slaves. They were barely paid anything for the work that they did. Many blacks lived in the streets and did not even have a place to get out of the weather. Due to these factors many blacks lived in poverty and were treated very cruel. A staff Writer wrote, “For black Americans, the pre-Civil Rights era was a time of danger and turmoil, as they set out to claim
Black people, even today, are subject to racially motivated violence and discrimination in their everyday lives. In the 20th century this kind of treatment was accepted and even at times prompted by authorities. Back then, brutal murders of black men, women, and children
Protests, such as Soweto, and boycotts are examples of internal unrest that ultimately led to the end of apartheid. On June 16th, 1976, over 360 blacks were killed by South African police
Another incident that rose eyebrows was the death of Stephen Biko, the leader of the South African Student Organization. “In the black freedom struggles in the Republic of South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, launching of protests by black students also marked a turning point and the onset of a new phase of the larger anti-apartheid movement” (Franklin, 2003). His death became world news. Accused of placing him to rest were the Port Elizabeth security police. They brutally beat Biko and chained him to a gate as if he was in a crucifixion and did not seek medical care for him until the next day.
(Sciway.net). This act of racism would spark the beginning of one of the most disgusting
United Nations members, and fellow concerned citizens, the world must discuss with the consequences of the initiation of apartheid. Apartheid, the separation of races completely, has become a horrible era in South African history, and has killed many innocent victims. However, the blacks of South Africa brought death upon themselves. Therefore, please pledge your support to the whites of South Africa in an attempt to save as many lives as possible in as short a time as we have. One must acknowledge that
The quest for international support, mass mobilization, armed operations, and underground organization became the basis for the ANC’s “Four Pillars of Struggle”. On March 21st, 1960, the Pan Africanists Congress, an anti-Apartheid splinter organization formed in 1959, organized a protest to the National Party’s “pass laws” which required all citizens, as well as native Africans, to carry identification papers on them at all times. Over five thousand individuals came to protest the cause in Sharpeville. Unfortunately, police forces arrived and open fired on the protesters, killing ninety-six in what became known as the Sharpeville massacre.
One large problem that occurred because of apartheid and was the cause of many protests was from 1961-1994, 3.5 million colored people and their families were forced out of their homes while their property was sold for very low prices to white farmers. This was just one example of events that were completely unfair to the colored population. Nelson Mandela was the person who stopped these acts from happening. In 1994, Mandela became the country’s first colored president. Instead of trying to make the people who put him into jail for 27 years suffer in consequences, he embraced them and used peace to unite everyone as equals, and not oppressing the people who had oppressed him for most of his life. Apartheid was a very rough time for anyone who lived in South Africa before Nelson Mandela and his peace helped to stop it.