Sharpeville Massacre 1960: Police Fire on Pass Law Protesters

The Sharpeville massacre took place on 21 March 1960, when South African police opened fire on a crowd protesting against the pass laws outside the police station in Sharpeville, a Black township near Vereeniging. Sixty-nine people were killed and around 180 wounded. The shooting became a turning point in the struggle against apartheid, leading to the banning of the main liberation movements and to growing international isolation for South Africa.

Background: apartheid and the pass laws

After the National Party won the 1948 election, it built apartheid, a system of legally enforced racial segregation. Central to it were the pass laws, which required Black men, and from the 1950s Black women too, to carry a reference book showing where they were allowed to live and work. Hundreds of thousands of people were prosecuted every year for pass offences.

The African National Congress (ANC) had led mass campaigns of non-violent defiance through the 1950s. In 1959 a group of members who rejected the ANC’s multiracial alliances broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) under Robert Sobukwe, a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. Both organisations planned anti-pass campaigns for 1960; the PAC launched its own ten days before the ANC’s planned start.

What happened

The PAC called on men to leave their passes at home on 21 March and to present themselves at police stations to be arrested, hoping to overwhelm the prisons and paralyse the economy. In Sharpeville the response was strong. From early morning a crowd gathered outside the police station; estimates of its size range from about 5,000 to more than 10,000 people.

Witnesses and later investigations described the crowd as largely unarmed and generally peaceful, though noisy, and some stones were thrown. Police reinforcements and armoured vehicles arrived during the morning, and Sabre jets flew low over the crowd. In the early afternoon, as a scuffle broke out near the gate, police officers opened fire without a clear order to do so, firing hundreds of rounds, by some counts more than a thousand, within a minute or two.

Sixty-nine people were killed, including women and children, and around 180 were wounded. Medical evidence showed that most had been shot in the back as they ran away. On the same day police also killed protesters at Langa, near Cape Town.

The crackdown

The killings set off strikes, protests and pass burnings across the country. ANC President-General Albert Luthuli publicly burned his pass and called for a national day of mourning on 28 March. On 30 March, the government of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd declared a state of emergency, and a young PAC organiser, Philip Kgosana, led a march of around 30,000 people into central Cape Town before being persuaded to disperse and then arrested.

Under the emergency regulations thousands of people were detained without trial. On 8 April 1960 the Unlawful Organisations Act banned both the ANC and the PAC. Sobukwe was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for incitement and then held on Robben Island until 1969 under a special law renewed each year.

Inquiry and accountability

The government appointed a judicial commission of inquiry under Justice Petrus Wessels. Police witnesses claimed the crowd had been violent and armed and that officers had fired in self-defence, while survivors and journalists described a largely peaceful gathering. The inquiry did not lead to the prosecution of any police officer.

Instead, in 1961 Parliament passed an indemnity act protecting officials from legal action for acts carried out in good faith during the unrest. Some of the wounded were themselves arrested while in hospital. Families of the dead received no compensation from the apartheid state.

Photographs taken by journalists of the magazine Drum, especially Ian Berry, played a vital part in shaping how the world understood the event. Their images of bodies lying in the road outside the police station, and of people running away, contradicted official claims and were published around the globe within days.

Myths and facts

It is sometimes said that the protest at Sharpeville was organised by the ANC. In fact the campaign was led by the rival Pan Africanist Congress; the ANC’s own anti-pass campaign was due to begin later. Another widespread idea is that the police were attacked first. Investigations, including the later Truth and Reconciliation Commission, found no evidence that the police faced a threat that justified opening fire, and the pattern of wounds showed that most victims were fleeing.

Key people

• Robert Sobukwe – founding president of the PAC, who planned the anti-pass campaign and was imprisoned for most of the following decade.
• Albert Luthuli – President-General of the ANC, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1960.
• Hendrik Verwoerd – Prime Minister from 1958, principal architect of “grand apartheid”.
• Philip Kgosana – PAC regional leader who led the great Cape Town march of 30 March 1960.

Consequences

Sharpeville convinced many in the liberation movements that peaceful protest alone could not defeat apartheid. In 1961 the ANC and its allies formed Umkhonto we Sizwe, an armed wing led by Nelson Mandela, and the PAC formed its own armed wing, Poqo. Mandela and other leaders were later sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.

Internationally, the massacre caused the first major wave of condemnation of apartheid. On 1 April 1960 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 134, deploring the killings and calling on South Africa to abandon apartheid. Investors briefly pulled capital out of the country. South Africa left the Commonwealth when it became a republic in May 1961, and the campaign that became the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain gained wide support.

By the numbers

Legacy

Sharpeville became a symbol of apartheid’s brutality worldwide. In 1966 the United Nations proclaimed 21 March the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. After the end of apartheid, the 1994 election and the adoption of a new constitution, South Africa made 21 March a public holiday, Human Rights Day.

Nelson Mandela chose Sharpeville as the place to sign the new constitution into law on 10 December 1996. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later found that the police had used excessive force and that the killings were gross violations of human rights. A memorial and museum now stand near the site, and the victims are buried in a nearby cemetery.

Timeline

• 1959, April: The Pan Africanist Congress is founded under Robert Sobukwe.
• 1960, 21 March: Police kill 69 people at Sharpeville; protesters are also shot at Langa.
• 1960, 28 March: National day of mourning called by Albert Luthuli.
• 1960, 30 March: State of emergency declared; Philip Kgosana leads a mass march in Cape Town.
• 1960, 1 April: UN Security Council adopts Resolution 134.
• 1960, 8 April: The ANC and PAC are banned.
• 1961, 16 December: Umkhonto we Sizwe begins its sabotage campaign.
• 1966, 26 October: The UN proclaims 21 March an international day against racial discrimination.
• 1996, 10 December: Mandela signs the new constitution at Sharpeville.

Why it matters

Sharpeville marked the end of the era of purely non-violent mass protest in South Africa and the start of decades of underground resistance and armed struggle. It also made apartheid an international issue, setting in motion the pressure that, together with events such as the Soweto uprising, eventually helped bring the system to an end.