Defending Democracy: South Africa: The Legacy of Youth Activism in the Fight for Global Democracy

June 16, 1976 thousands of high school students in South Africa’s SOWETO township called a strike over the restive education policies of the apartheid regime. As they marched unto an open field adjacent to their schools the South African military opened fire killing and injuring hundreds of students. These youth became the vanguard of protest actions throughout South Africa and around the world. 

50 years later, on the anniversary of the SOWETO Uprising, we reflect on the courage and resilience of these youth in facing down one of the most violent and repressive autocratic governments in our times. 

We look at the role youth movements have today in South Africa and the United States in calling out injustice, demanding economic equality of opportunity, denouncing bigotry and hate speech and defending democratic rights. 

In this the fourth in the series of the AFT/ASI Defending Democracy webinar series we will hear from South Africa and U.S. youth who are mobilizing youth movements today while recalling the legacy of those who led 50 years ago. 

AFT and ASI President Randi Weingarten and Dr. Mugwena Maluleke, General Secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers Union lead off the discussion with their reflections on the historic anti-apartheid movement and what it teaches today in our FIGHT FOR A BETTER LIFE FOR ALL.