| 49th Anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre
49th Anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre
Today marks the 49th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre. Never forget!!
March 21, 1960: A large crowd of Black South Africans assembled in front of the Sharpeville police station to protest the pass laws imposed by apartheid. The pass laws were statutes requiring all black men and women of South Africa to carry a reference book with them when they travelled outside of their homes.
The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), led by Robert Sobukwe, together with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), organized the protest for the nation's blacks to join together to demonstrate peacefully against apartheid.
Rarely in South Africa before 1960 had so many black people demonstrated their defiance of the laws in any way. The police were highly apprehensive, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, tensions were released: the police attacked, the crowd pelted the policemen with stones, and the policemen retaliated with gunfire.
In the end, sixty-nine protesters were killed and one hundred and eighty were wounded (some shot while trying to flee) in what came to be known as The Sharpeville Massacre.
__________________ "We must continue to move forward and do everything we can to outlaw legal lynching in America. We must continue to stand together in unity and to demand a moratorium on all executions. You must stay strong. You must continue to hold your heads up, and to be there. We will prevail. Keep marching Black people. They are killing me tonight. They are murdering me tonight." -- Excerpts of Last Words of Bro. Shaka Sankofa, an innocent man executed by the state of Texas, 6/22/00. www.myspace.com/nattyreb7 | 
03-21-2009
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