Sharpeville massacre

The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, when police opened fire on a crowd of people who had assembled outside the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng) to protest against the apartheid system and its pass laws.

A crowd of approximately 5,000 people gathered in Sharpeville that day in response to the call made by the Pan-Africanist Congress to leave their pass-books at home and to demand that the police arrest them for contravening the pass laws. The protesters were told that they would be addressed by a government official and they waited outside the police station as more police officers arrived, including senior members of the Security Branch. At 1.30 pm, without issuing a warning, the police fired 1,344 rounds into the crowd.

For more than fifty years the number of people killed and injured has been based on the police record, which included 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. More recent research has shown that at least 91 people were killed at Sharpeville and at least 238 people were wounded. Many people were shot in the back as they fled from the police. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is commemorated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre.

In 2024, the area where the massacre occurred and the memorial became a World Heritage Site, known as Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites.

Life in Sharpeville before the massacre

Sharpeville was first built in 1943 to replace Topville, a nearby township that suffered overcrowding where illnesses like pneumonia were widespread. Due to the illness, removals from Topville began in 1958. Approximately 10,000 Indigenous Africans were forcibly removed to Sharpeville. Sharpeville had a high rate of unemployment as well as high crime rates. There were also youth problems because many children joined gangs and were affiliated with crimes instead of schools. Furthermore, a new police station was created, from which the police were energetic to check passes, deporting illegal residents, and raiding illegal shebeens.

Preceding events

thumb|Demonstrators discarding their passbooks to protest apartheid, 1960

South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of Africans into cities. Pass laws, intended to control and restrict their movement and employment, were updated in the 1950s. Under the country's National Party government, African residents in urban districts were subject to "influx control" measures. Individuals over sixteen were required to carry passbooks, which contained an identity card, employment and influx authorisation from a labour bureau, name of employer and address, and details of personal history. Leading up to the Sharpeville massacre, the National Party administration under the leadership of Hendrik Verwoerd used these laws to enforce greater racial segregation and, in 1959–1960, extended them to include women. From the 1960s, the pass laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain and harass its political opponents. The Sharpeville police were not completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already driven smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night.

The PAC actively organized to increase turnout to the demonstration, distributing pamphlets and appearing in person to urge people not to go to work on the day of the protest. Many of the civilians present attended voluntarily to support the protest, but there is evidence that the PAC also used coercive means to draw the crowd there, including the cutting of telephone lines into Sharpeville, and preventing bus drivers from driving their routes. At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protester, and the crowd surged forward. The police shot many people in the back as they turned to flee, causing some to be paralyzed.

Pretext for firing

Police reports in 1960 claimed that young and inexperienced police officers panicked and opened fire spontaneously, setting off a chain reaction that lasted about forty seconds. Few of the policemen present had received public order training. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite. He also denied giving any order to fire and stated that he would not have done so.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found in 1998 that "the evidence of Commission deponents reveals a degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire at Sharpeville and indicates that the shooting was more than the result of inexperienced and frightened police officers losing their nerve."

Many white South Africans were also horrified by the massacre. The poet Duncan Livingstone, a Scottish immigrant from the Isle of Mull who lived in Pretoria, wrote in response to the massacre the Scottish Gaelic poem "Bean Dubh a' Caoidh a Fir a Chaidh a Marbhadh leis a' Phoileas" ("A Black Woman Mourns her Husband Killed by the Police").

A storm of international protest followed the Sharpeville shootings, including sympathetic demonstrations in many countries and condemnation by the United Nations. On 1 April 1960, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 134. Sharpeville marked a turning point in South Africa's history; the country found itself increasingly isolated in the international community. The event also played a role in South Africa's departure from the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961.

The Sharpeville massacre contributed to the banning of the PAC and ANC as illegal organisations. The massacre was one of the catalysts for a shift from passive resistance to armed resistance by these organisations. The foundation of Poqo, the military wing of the PAC, and Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC, followed shortly afterwards.

Not all reactions were negative: embroiled in its opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, the Mississippi House of Representatives voted for a resolution supporting the South African government "for its steadfast policy of segregation and the [staunch] adherence to their traditions in the face of overwhelming external agitation." The resolution passed 78–8 in the Mississippi House of Representatives and 45–0 in the Mississippi State Senate.

Commemoration

Since 1994, 21 March has been commemorated as Human Rights Day in South Africa.

Sharpeville was the site selected by President Nelson Mandela for the signing into law of the Constitution of South Africa on 10 December 1996.

In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that the police actions constituted "gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people."

In 2024, the area where the massacre occurred and the memorial became a World Heritage Site, known as Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites.

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

UNESCO marks 21 March as the yearly International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the massacre.

References in art and literature

The Afrikaner poet Ingrid Jonker mentioned the Sharpeville Massacre in her verse.

The event was an inspiration for painter Oliver Lee Jackson in his Sharpeville Series from the 1970s.

Ingrid de Kok was a child living on a mining compound near Johannesburg where her father worked at the time of the Sharpeville massacre. In her poem "Our Sharpeville" she reflects on the atrocity through the eyes of a child.

Max Roach's 1960 album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite includes the composition "Tears for Johannesburg" in response to the massacre.

South African artist Gavin Jantjes dedicated several prints in his series A South African Colouring Book (1974–75) to the Sharpeville Massacre. Iconic reportage photographs of scattering protesters are arranged alongside stenciled and handwritten captions pulled from news reporting of the unfolding event.

The Sharpeville massacre forms part of Wilbur Smith's historical novel, Rage

The massacre is referenced in the 1992 book Tandia, by South African author Bryce Courtenay.

The story of the massacre was adapted by folk musician Ewan MacColl as The Ballad of Sharpeville, who performed it with Peggy Seeger on their 1977 album, Saturday Night at The Bull and Mouth.