Youth Day | Why we celebrate it and what it's all about?

On June 16 each year, South Africans celebrate Youth Day. Youth Day commemorates the Soweto Uprising, which took place on 16 June 1976, where thousands of students were ambushed by the apartheid regime.

On Youth Day, South Africans pay tribute to the lives of these students and recognizes the role of the youth in the liberation of South Africa from the apartheid regime.

In January of 1976, the government mandated that all school subjects be taught in Afrikaans. This decision caused an uproar amongst parents, teachers and students, so later that year, on 16 June, 16-year-old Antoinette Sithole and an estimated 20,000 students from Soweto and the surrounding secondary and high schools, planned to peacefully protest Afrikaans as the primary teaching language in schools.

Thousands of students gathered to protest from their schools to Orlando Stadium in Soweto. Little did they know it would go on to become one of the most tragic, yet pivotal, protests in all of South Africa’s history.

Singing ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, which means ‘God Bless Africa’ – a song banned by the apartheid regime, the students made their way through the streets of Soweto when police randomly opened fire on them. In the confusion and chaos, Sithole’s 13-year-old brother, Hector Pieterson was fatally shot.

Photojournalist, the late Sam Nzima, was covering the protest for The World, a Johannesburg newspaper, when he captured the iconic image of Pieterson’s lifeless body being carried through the streets with Sithole crying hysterically by his side. The photograph was published across the globe and Pieterson came to symbolise the uprising, giving the world a shocking glimpse into the sheer brutality of apartheid.

The students’ brave efforts resulted in international pressure and sanctions against the South African government to make changes to its educational policies, and in 1995, the newly-elected democratic government declared that the 16th of June would be Youth Day – to serve as a reminder of the progress our country has made regarding equality and equal opportunity for all youth.

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