The movement against apartheid in south africa

During the 1970s, resistance to apartheid intensified. At the beginning it was through strikes and later through the students led by Steve Biko. Biko, a medical student, was the main force behind the Black Conscience Movement that advocated the liberation of blacks, the pride of race and non-violent opposition.

In 1974 the government issued a law that required the use of the Afrikaans language in all schools, including those of blacks. This measure was very unpopular, because it was considered as the language of white oppression. On April 30, 1976, the Soweto schools declared themselves in absentia. On June 16, 1976, the students organized a march that ended in violence, where 566 children died as a result of police firing, which had responded with bullets to the stones thrown by the demonstrators. This incident initiated a wave of violence that spread throughout South Africa.

In September of 1977 Steve Biko was arrested. The tortures to which he was subjected were so brutal that he died three days after his arrest. A judge ruled that there were no guilty parties, although the Medical Society of South Africa claimed that he died because of the harassment received and the lack of medical attention. After these incidents South Africa changed radically. A new generation of young blacks were willing to fight with the slogan "liberation before education".