2.2 The soweto uprising  (Page 2/3)

I remember turning and seeing Hector Petersen fall. He was the first one. I watched Mbuyisa Makhubu pick him up and start moving towards me, with Hector’s sister Antoinette running beside him.

I took six pics, including the famous photograph…

Mbuyisa put Hector in the car, and they drove to the clinic across the road. One of the students heard the doctor certify Hector dead on arrival and ran to tell the others. They were outraged and many began throwing stones at the police; others burnt cars and buildings and looted bottle stores. Panic spread.

By 3 o’clock that day, my picture of Hector Petersen was on the front page of every newspaper, here and overseas.’

From: Marie Claire , June 1998

SOURCE D:

From a wheelchair

Popi Buthelezi, now 39, was 16 years old on June 16, when a policeman’s bullet left her permanently paralysed.

‘I was a Senaoane Secondary School student where teachers had been instructed to teach us in Afrikaans. Because I couldn’t express myself properly, I’d get 20 out of 100 for my tests.

‘Still, my friends and I didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t know who had coordinated the thing, but later found out it was ‘The Soweto Eleven’ – young activists who held meetings at Morris Isaacson High School and Naledi High.

‘I can’t forget that day. At 8 am, we were in the hall, about to write a biology exam, when a crowd arrived with placards that read ‘Away with Afrikaans’. They called us to join them. Then one of the leaders climbed a tree and told us that a boy had been shot, he said we had to destroy government property…students started burning buildings and looting shops.

The police began shooting at us, but we weren’t afraid of anything. That’s when Dr Melville Edelstein was killed – they saw a white man and took him out of his car, set it alight beat him and dumped his body in a dustbin.

That evening, I saw the township alight, it was like a war. I was about to cross the street when the police reappeared. I ran when I heard shots. The third bullet hit my back, went through my spine and out of my chest. Three days later I woke up in Baragwanath Hospital. I discovered I couldn’t move.

I wanted to be a lawyer, but I became an administration clerk. I don’t know why the police shot at us. Maybe they’ll have an answer for that one day.

(From: Marie Claire, June 1998)

SOURCE E:

A sister remembers

Antoinette Sithole (nee Petersen) was 17 years old when a photograph of her running alongside the body of her dying brother became an image which epitomised the anti-apartheid struggle.

‘On the morning of June 16, 1976, my cousin told me there was going to be a student march to protest that we were being taught in Afrikaans, but it had been kept very quiet. I didn’t believe that the march would take place and I forgot all about it.

… Hector and I went to schools in the same street in White City, so we left home together. He was a shy child, but funny and full of tricks. We called him ‘Chopper’ because of his square haircut.

… At Assembly the students were already singing protest songs. Through the window, I saw a large crowd walking down from Morris Isaacson High School. They wanted us to join the march. I thought it would be fun – we were going to express ourselves. And because there were so many of us, I thought we’d be okay.