[Note: This program originally aired in 2016]
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The June 16 1976 Uprising that began in Soweto and spread countrywide profoundly changed the sociopolitical landscape in South Africa. Of the various events that led to the uprising—the primary impetus was located in the Apartheid government’s policy that resulted in the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953.
The rise of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and the formation of South African Students Organisation (SASO) raised the political consciousness of many students while others joined the wave of anti-Apartheid sentiment within the student community. When the language of Afrikaans alongside English was made the required medium of instruction in schools in 1974, black students began mobilizing themselves. On 16 June 1976 between 3000 and 10,000 students mobilized by the South African Students Movement's Action Committee supported by the BCM marched peacefully to demonstrate and protest against the government’s directive. The march was meant to culminate at a rally in Orlando Stadium.

Although their protests were peaceful, police opened fire on the students, killing many and injuring even more. Images of police flogging, firing at and arresting students were forever impressed upon our minds and stowed away in the archives of painful history as a country. Only three decades later, we bore witness to the rise of a similar student movement––the birth of #FeesMustFall.

We then look at Ethiopia with AWNP's, Mwiza Munthali.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Image: Everything Must Fall: The High Cost of Free Education, a film by Rehad Desai [Miners Shot Down, 2014; The Bushman's Secrets, 2006; How to Steal a Country, 2019]. This film was featured in Africa World Now Project's New African Film Festival, held, yearly every March, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, Washington DC metropolitan area.