Document 9
this excerpt is taken from a 2006 national public radio program in which nthato motlana and bongi
mkhabela were interviewed. nthato motlana played a critical role in the aftermath of the soweto uprisings and
bongi mkhabela was responsible for planning the student march in soweto.
thirty years ago, the uprising of a group of schoolchildren changed south africa forever.…
but on june 16, 1976, students in soweto township outside johannesburg decided to hold
a protest against a government policy mandating that all classes be taught in afrikaans, the
language of south african whites.
what started as a student demonstration exploded across south africa, to change
the course of the nation’s history by galvanizing the struggle to dismantle apartheid.…
newscast: at 8: 15 in the morning, and precisely according to plan, students
simultaneously marched out of five schools in soweto, intending to protest the afrikaans issue
in a mass meeting at the orlando football stadium.…
nthato motlana: then it became really a torrent, a sea of young, black faces. masses of
students, i mean, we’d never seen such a demonstration in many, many years. and at that
point, the police tried to stop the march from going on to orlando stadium.
bongi mkhabela: i’ve never seen that many police. and you didn’t only have police at
that time, you had the defense force. so you actually had the army.
nthato motlana: they intervened by, first of all, setting dogs. and i saw these police
dogs set onto these kids, man, and i saw moments of real courage, especially from the girls.
bongi mkhabela: i mean, this is a group of kids, kids with shining black shoes and little
white socks and teeny little tunics. and they are singing freedom songs, holding one another.
we actually looked cute. it’s unbelievable to think that anyone could have stood firm on their
feet and actually shot into that crowd.…
source: “soweto 1976: an audio history,” npr
according to this national public radio program, what was one action taken by the south african
government to end the student protests in soweto?