50 years since the Soweto Uprising

Summary

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Witness History: 50 Years Since the Soweto Uprising

BBC World Service – Witness History | June 16, 2026
Host: Alan Johnston
Guest: Bongi Mkabela (Soweto Uprising participant and former CEO, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund)

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, a watershed moment in South Africa’s resistance against apartheid. Through the first-hand recollections of Bongi Mkabela, a student leader during the protest, listeners are transported to June 16, 1976, the day black schoolchildren rose up against the forced imposition of Afrikaans as the teaching language. The episode explores the anticipation leading up to the march, the eruption of violence, the emotional impact, and the historic legacy of the uprising.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Oppression and Organizing

• Apartheid’s impact on youth: Bongi’s childhood was deeply affected by the daily injustices she faced as a black South African under apartheid.
• Purpose of protest: The main outrage was the forced use of Afrikaans in black schools, symbolizing cultural oppression and lack of choice.
  • Bongi Mkabela [02:14]: “We understood not Africans only as a language, but Africans as a language of the oppressor... when it’s imposed on us, when we had no choice.”

2. The Morning of June 16, 1976

• Student preparation & resolve: Over 3,400 students assembled with careful organization, determined to remain peaceful and responsible.
  • Bongi Mkabela [02:39]: “This is how we're going to march. One, we're going to be very peaceful. Two, we’re going to be taking responsibility for one another... make sure you’re always holding somebody else’s hand.”
• Anticipation mixed with excitement and pride: Pride in their ability to mobilize and the energy of youth characterized the initial phase.
  • Bongi Mkabela [03:27]: “There was... a level of determination and I think a level of pride that we've been able to organize ourselves into this huge mass.”

3. Escalation: From Teargas to Gunfire

• Initial police response: Prepared for teargas, students regrouped and continued after the first attack.
• Shocking escalation: The arrival of army vehicles brought terror. Gunfire near Orlando stadium marked a violent shift.
  • Bongi Mkabela [03:59]: “For the first time we saw army vehicles ... terrifying contraptions.”
  • Bongi Mkabela [04:22]: “There was no live ammunition until we got to Orlando. And at that point it was just live ammunition.”

4. Emotional Toll and Tragedy

• Fear, anger, but sustained determination: Running for safety, students faced violence and chaos.
  • Bongi Mkabela [05:09]: “There's a combination of fear and anger and determination.”
• Personal heartbreak: The death of a 13-year-old boy was a pivotal moment for Bongi.
  • Bongi Mkabela [05:19]: “Somehow, I think that was the barrier... there is nothing else that you can ever fear again. It’s not going to be about a protest and us submitting a paper... the response we would get would potentially put us in prisons and even kill some of us.”

5. Responsibility and Moral Clarity

• Refusing regret: Despite the violence and her own subsequent arrests, Bongi regrets only underestimating the brutality of the system, not the protest itself.
  • Bongi Mkabela [06:13]: “No, I didn’t feel it’s been a mistake. I felt the heavy handedness of the system. I actually realized how evil the system is. And I had absolutely no regrets except regretting, not fully appreciating how evil the system was.”

6. Lasting Impact and Legacy

• Turning point in South African history: The uprising demonstrated to the apartheid state that their system could not continue unchallenged.
  • Bongi Mkabela [07:06]: “That was a turning point... it is the point at which the apartheid government begins to realize that it cannot continue forever.”
• Personal cost: Bongi’s activism led to about five years in prison.
• Role in the new South Africa: After Apartheid, Bongi became the CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, continuing her fight for justice.

7. A Defining Memory: The Protest Song

• A collective moment: The singing of the freedom song “Senzeni Na” as they left the school crystallized the courage and unity of the movement.
  • Bongi Mkabela [08:23]: “I see us leaving the school... I was holding on to my friend Cindy... when she started that Senzeni Na, and when I could hear the response coming from the huge crowd... that, for me, is a moment.”

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Notable Quotes

• “It was fear, the kind of fear that you taste in your mouth. It was anger, the kind of anger that almost blinds you.”
  – Bongi Mkabela [01:06]
• “Make sure that you're always holding somebody else's hand. Make sure that you're staying on the pavements, let's not stop traffic.”
  – Bongi Mkabela [02:47]
• “For me, that was the moment when we realized that lives were going to be lost... the response we would get was going to be a response that would potentially put us in prisons and even kill some of us.”
  – Bongi Mkabela [05:19]
• “No, I didn’t feel it’s been a mistake. I felt the heavy handedness of the system.”
  – Bongi Mkabela [06:13]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:36 – Introduction to the Soweto Uprising context
• 01:06 – Bongi describes her emotional state as the violence began
• 02:14 – 02:32 – The significance of Afrikaans as the language of oppression
• 02:39 – 04:10 – Gathering, planning, and marching; encounter with police/army
• 05:19 – The death of a child and the turning point for Bongi
• 06:13 – Discussing the sense of responsibility and the brutal lessons learned
• 07:06 – The aftermath and historical legacy
• 08:23 – The Senzeni Na song: a defining memory of unity and resistance

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Memorable Moment

• 08:23: Bongi vividly recalls the music and solidarity as they left the school: holding hands, the crowd responding to the freedom song, and the unbreakable spirit despite the looming threat.
  • “That, for me, is a moment.” – Bongi Mkabela

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an intimate, eyewitness view of a historic struggle for dignity and freedom. Bongi Mkabela’s reflections offer both the horror and hope of the Soweto Uprising—a pivotal day that accelerated the eventual downfall of apartheid and remains central to South Africa’s narrative of resistance.

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Transcript

[Bongi Mkabela]

Foreign.

[Narrator/Host]

Welcome to Witness History from the BBC World Service. We're the podcast that takes you back to the biggest moments in living memory by interviewing someone who was there. Episodes are just nine minutes long and come out every weekday, so hit subscribe and you'll never miss out in this episode. We're going back half a century to an event that shook the apartheid regime in South Africa to its foundations, the Soweto uprising. In 2010, Alan Johnston spoke to one of the organisers about that violent but impactful event.

[Alan Johnston]

It's early on June 16, 1976, and on Johannesburg's outskirts, the young people of the township of Soweto are about to make their voices heard. In the hours ahead, demonstrating black school children will be fired on by police in scenes of violence that will shock the world. A girl called Bongi Nkabela will be among the protesters. She describes what she felt when the security forces started shooting.

[Bongi Mkabela]

It was fear, the kind of fear that you taste in your mouth. It was anger, the kind of anger that almost blinds you. And it was frustration, absolute frustration. But at the same time, you know, adrenaline also carries you to just run and. And ran for life.

[Alan Johnston]

Every aspect of Bongi Mkabela's childhood had been marked by the injustices of apartheid. Along with many other increasingly politicized young people, she had decided that it was time to make a stand. She was elected to represent her high school on a council that made preparations for a day of peaceful protest. It was agreed that on June 16, Soweto's students would abandon their classrooms. They'd march through the streets and eventually convert for a rally at the Orlando football stadium. Their main aim was to protest at the compulsory imposition in their schools of teaching in Afrikaans, the language of the dominant Europeans of Dutch descent.

[Bongi Mkabela]

We understood not Africans only as a language, but Africans as a language of the oppressor. It wasn't just the use of the language itself. It was what the language would mean when it's used as a medium of instruction, when. When it's imposed on us, when we had no choice.

[Alan Johnston]

Bongi Mkabela remembers gathering at her school on what was a cold winter's morning.

[Bongi Mkabela]

You have about 3, 400 children gathered outside on assembly. You have your teachers standing on the margins of the assembly and we have student leaders standing and saying, look, this is how we're going to march. One, we're going to be very peaceful. Two, we're going to be taking responsibility for one another. So make sure that you're always holding somebody else's hand. Make sure that you're staying on the pavements, let's not stop traffic. So in some ways, you know, you're trying to put some logic and some sense into this much so it doesn't go wild. We went out expecting particularly tear gassing, and we're ready with water and with things that we thought helped with tear gassing. And indeed, there was a great deal of kind of excitement, as you would imagine, if you have a huge crowd and a level of determination and I think a level of pride that we've been able to organize ourselves into this huge mass and that we will express ourselves and get our voices heard by those who are responsible. So when that match takes off, it has a great deal of energy. And we are Africans, you know, we sing when someone dies, we sing when there's a wedding. We sing all the time. So with, with that kind of gutsy Africa in us, we took off into the streets. We must have been 30 minutes or so into the match when we had the first canister of teargues thrown at us. And of course, that threw us out a bit. But we reconverged after we had recovered and we continued to march. And for the first time we saw army vehicles. Now, these were really terrifying contraptions of vehicles. We had never seen anything like that before. And tear gas was coming out of those vehicles. There was no live ammunition until we got to Orlando. And at that point it was just live ammunition. We all had to run and hide and get into houses and families.

[Alan Johnston]

But you must have been frightened, scrambling for safety, people around you being hurt.

[Bongi Mkabela]

There's a combination of fear and anger and determination.

[Alan Johnston]

What was the very worst moment,

[Bongi Mkabela]

absolutely worst moment for me personally, was when the news came that a little boy of 13 had been killed. Somehow, I think that was the barrier. It's almost like, you know, when you cross that line, there is nothing else that you can ever fear again. And for me, that was the moment when we realized that lives were going to be lost. And when we realized that it's not going to be about a protest and us submitting a paper of grievances, the response we were going to get was going to be a response that would potentially put us in prisons and even kill some of us.

[Alan Johnston]

And as one of the organizers, when you, as you say, saw very young people being hurt around you, did you feel a sense of responsibility that perhaps this had been a mistake?

[Bongi Mkabela]

Alan? No, I didn't feel it. It's been a mistake. I felt the heavy handedness of the system. I actually realized how evil the system is. And I had absolutely no regrets except regretting, not fully appreciating how evil the system was.

[Alan Johnston]

According to the government at the time, 23 people died that day. But on the streets of the township, many believed that the real figure was much higher. And what became known as the Soweto riots spread and simmered on for months, during which hundreds were killed. This was the grim cost of the confrontation that the students had sparked. But their action is now seen as having been a highly significant moment in the fight against apartheid.

[Bongi Mkabela]

The one thing that is said today is that that was a turning point in many ways and indeed in South Africa's history. We see that June 16, 1976. It is the point at which the apartheid government begins to realize that it cannot continue forever. I think the issues in Soweto and the lives of people in Soweto cease to be in the background.

[Alan Johnston]

Several weeks after Soweto's students began to protest, Bongi Mkabela was arrested. She spent months in jail and after being freedom, was imprisoned again. Altogether, she was behind bars for about five years. Today, in the post apartheid South Africa that she fought for, Bongi Mkabela is the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. And all these years on, among her most vivid memories of that extraordinary day in 1976 is one particular moment when the words of a Zulu freedom song called Senzeni Na rang out and captured the mood.

[Bongi Mkabela]

I see us leaving the school when the schoolyard was behind us and when we were holding hands as a group of six. And I was holding on to my friend Cindy, who is just one of the best students soloist I have ever seen. And when she started that Senze Nina, and when I could hear the response coming from the huge crowd of students and that song being carried out. And as we left the premises of Naledi High School and we looked forward and we marched. That, for me, is a moment.

[Narrator/Host]

Kabela spent two decades as the CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. She was speaking to Alan Johnston in 2010 for Witness History from the BBC World Service. I hope you found it interesting. And if you want to hear more South African history, we've got episodes on the post apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission or for something different. Search for Brenda Fassey, Madonna of the townships. And goodbye for now.

[Bongi Mkabela]

A moment in time captured by what they heard.

[Narrator/Host]

I heard some people making phone calls.

[Bongi Mkabela]

Okay, which Runway would you like at Teterboro? What they saw, I put my head down.

[Narrator/Host]

I saw the movie of my life.

[Bongi Mkabela]

Started going through my head what they smelt. I still remember the smell of the fresh fish and I completely lost my appetite. Moments captured which last for a lifetime.

[Narrator/Host]

Scientists have made the atomic bomb that

[Alan Johnston]

sort of flash set on fire the birds and they all fell down without their feathers on the way was clear

[Bongi Mkabela]

for Hitler to realize all his demonic plans. Stories from people with firsthand accounts of events that have shaped our world.

[Narrator/Host]

At the end, Kissinger called me into his office and he said, you did a good job. I left the office with tears in my eyes.

[Alan Johnston]

She called me and told me, I'm doing Studio 54. She had already become a star in Paris. She came back a superstar. Listen now.

[Bongi Mkabela]

Search for witness history wherever you get your BBC podcasts.