Tuesday | June 16, 2026
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 school the South Africa 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.
In this the fourth in the series of the AFT/ASI Defending Democracy webinar series AFT and ASI President Randi Weingarten and Dr. Mugwena Maluleke, General Secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers Union reflected on the historic anti-apartheid movement, followed by a panel of South Africa and U.S. youth who are following that legacy by mobilizing youth movements today calling out injustice, demanding economic equality of opportunity, denouncing bigotry and hate speech and defending democratic rights.
