Human Rights Day and the Under-recognition of Robert Sobukwe

On March 21st – Human Rights Day – one of the rights we celebrate is the right of every South African citizen to move about freely in the country of their birth.
Fifty-one years ago, this was not the case – most South Africans by birth were not citizens, and the movements of all black South African men were severely restricted by the laws which governed the passes they were obliged to carry.

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe

On March 21st 1960, nonviolent protests against the pass laws were initiated by a new organization - the Pan Africanist Congress. Thousands of people gathered at police stations to burn their passes and to present themselves for arrest.
At Sharpeville a large gathering of unarmed protestors was fired on by apartheid police. 69 people were killed and many more wounded. This massacre changed the nature of the struggle in South Africa. Within a week the country was mobilized – there were mass protests, demonstrations and strikes.
On March 30th, the government declared a State of Emergency, That same day thirty thousand people marched from Langa and Nyanga along De Waal Drive towards the Houses of Parliament. They were turned back by the PAC leader in order to avoid a bloodbath. Almost eighteen thousand people were arrested in the ensuing days and the PAC and ANC were banned. Leaders who were not arrested began to go into exile and the decision to wage armed struggle was taken. International opposition to apartheid was also mobilized by these events.

Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the PAC and a lecturer at Wits University, walked with a group of protestors on March 21st to Orlando police station. He was arrested and then later tried. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment on Robben Island. This was extended indefinitely through the promulgation of a special clause, so that it was 8 years before he was released to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. His role in these events is seldom acknowledged.