Lopi LaRoe Soweto 1976

Lopi LaRoe

Soweto 1976
Oil on Canvas
5” x 5”
September 2005

This was painted from a photograph taken by Sam Nzima that has become a symbol of police brutality. It shows the lifeless body of Hector Peterson being carried by a distraught friend, Mbuyisa Makhubu with his grieving sister Antoinette by his side. Hector was killed when police open fired without warning into the crowd of 10,000 unarmed school children who were singing songs of protest in the streets of Soweto.
Black students in Soweto, South Africa, protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 which forced all black students to learn the Afrikaans language and to be taught secondary school mathematics, social sciences, geography and history in the language.
Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying: "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' only spoke Afrikaans or only spoke English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages."
The decree was resented deeply by blacks as Afrikaans was widely viewed, in the words of Desmond Tutu, then Dean of Johannesburg as "the language of the oppressor". The resentment grew until April 30, 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. The students organized a mass rally for June 16, 1976 to hopefully make themselves heard by the Bantu Education System.
Students were disparaging of the attitude of their teachers and parents. One student wrote to The World newspaper: "Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man's rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth."
On the morning of June 16, 1976, thousands of black students met for a rally to protest more effectively against having to learn Afrikaans in school. The protest was intended to be peaceful and had been carefully planned by the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee, with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement. Teachers in Soweto also supported the march after the Action Committee emphasized good discipline and peaceful action.
The students began the march only to find out that police had barricaded the road along their intended route. The leader of the action committee asked the crowd not to provoke the police and the march continued on another route, eventually ending up near Orlando High School. The crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 students made their way towards the area of the school; at the same time police called for reinforcements of officers.
There are various accounts of what started the massacre which followed. The police had weapons and tear gas while the students were unarmed. Some reports later claimed that the school children were throwing stones, while others claim the protests were peaceful with no violent actions from the children at all.
The police threw canisters of tear gas to disperse the students, who then began throwing stones in retaliation. The gas forced the crowd to draw back a little, but they continued singing and waving placards with slogans including: "Down with Afrikaans", "Viva Azania" and "If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu". A white male police officer drew his handgun and fired a shot, causing panic and chaos. Students started screaming and running and more gunshots were fired. At least four children were shot, the first being Hastings Ndlovu followed by 13-year-old Hector Peterson. The rioting continued and 23 people, including three whites, died on the first day in Soweto.

Lopi LaRoe

Soweto 1976
Oil on Canvas
5” x 5”
September 2005

This was painted from a photograph taken by Sam Nzima that has become a symbol of police brutality. It shows the lifeless body of Hector Peterson being carried by a distraught friend, Mbuyisa Makhubu with his grieving sister Antoinette by his side. Hector was killed when police open fired without warning into the crowd of 10,000 unarmed school children who were singing songs of protest in the streets of Soweto.
Black students in Soweto, South Africa, protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 which forced all black students to learn the Afrikaans language and to be taught secondary school mathematics, social sciences, geography and history in the language.
Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying: "I have not consulted the African people on the language issue and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' only spoke Afrikaans or only spoke English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages."
The decree was resented deeply by blacks as Afrikaans was widely viewed, in the words of Desmond Tutu, then Dean of Johannesburg as "the language of the oppressor". The resentment grew until April 30, 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. The students organized a mass rally for June 16, 1976 to hopefully make themselves heard by the Bantu Education System.
Students were disparaging of the attitude of their teachers and parents. One student wrote to The World newspaper: "Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man's rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth."
On the morning of June 16, 1976, thousands of black students met for a rally to protest more effectively against having to learn Afrikaans in school. The protest was intended to be peaceful and had been carefully planned by the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee, with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement. Teachers in Soweto also supported the march after the Action Committee emphasized good discipline and peaceful action.
The students began the march only to find out that police had barricaded the road along their intended route. The leader of the action committee asked the crowd not to provoke the police and the march continued on another route, eventually ending up near Orlando High School. The crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 students made their way towards the area of the school; at the same time police called for reinforcements of officers.
There are various accounts of what started the massacre which followed. The police had weapons and tear gas while the students were unarmed. Some reports later claimed that the school children were throwing stones, while others claim the protests were peaceful with no violent actions from the children at all.
The police threw canisters of tear gas to disperse the students, who then began throwing stones in retaliation. The gas forced the crowd to draw back a little, but they continued singing and waving placards with slogans including: "Down with Afrikaans", "Viva Azania" and "If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu". A white male police officer drew his handgun and fired a shot, causing panic and chaos. Students started screaming and running and more gunshots were fired. At least four children were shot, the first being Hastings Ndlovu followed by 13-year-old Hector Peterson. The rioting continued and 23 people, including three whites, died on the first day in Soweto.