Remembering Sharpeville 61 years later. While Nyakane Tsolo led the Sharpeville protest, Sobukwe is pictured here in Soweto leading the people there toward the local police station where they would hand themselves over for arrest. 
After the PAC was formed on 6 April 1959, the movement got to work setting up branches. In July that year the Tsolo brothers (Nyakane and Job) set up a branch in Sharpeville with Nyakane (pictured here) serving as branch secretary.
We'll be back to remember uTata uPhillip Kgosana on the 30th but he was also due to lead the Cape Town branch on this day. While the members that side were on their peaceful way to the police station, 10 police vans intercepted them.
They protesters were threatened with violence. That evening the Cape Town branch met kwaLanga to figure out a way forward. Police stormed that meeting and killed 3 people. 26 others were injured.
A blurry image of Joyce Mokhesi & Julia Ramashola (back) who mobilized support for the Sharpeville 6 who faced execution in the 80s. One of the 6 was Theresa Ramashola, the first woman sentenced to death. Julia was her mother, & was among the women who marched on 21 March 1960.
Quick summary of the days leading to Sharpeville: the PAC meets in December 1959 and resolves to start its Positive Campaign against pass laws in the next year. 13 March 1960 a flyer is circulated confirming this to be the case and that more details would follow.
18 March, Sobukwe releases a statement outlining the details of the campaign starting on 21 March. On the 19th a press conference is held by the PAC where the campaign is further clarified as peaceful & non-violent. It is further confirmed that 21 March is the day.
20 March, the ANC announces it will not be participating in the campaign (note the PAC had reached across the aisle to other movements inviting them to be part of the Campaign). The ANC through Duma Nokwe declared the campaign opportunistic.
In another part of the country on the 20th, Nonqulwana (also known as the Pondoland revolt) is intensifying. The tensions emaMpondweni had been going on for most of the 50s in defiance of the Bantu Authorities Act which commenced 70 years ago on 17 July.
21 March: By midday protesters at Sharpeville were about 5000 in number. Tsolo informs the police people are here to hand themselves over for arrest. The rest is tragic history. 69 people were killed, 180 were injured.
Exactly 25 years after the massacre at Sharpeville, KwaLanga in Uitenhage (now Kariega) police shot at a funeral procession killing 21 people. The funeral procession had been for 4 people killed two weeks before.
By the 80s, mass funerals had been banned as these had become sites of political organizing. So this day in 1985, on the 25th anniversary of Sharpeville Day, on the day of a funeral of 4 people 21 people were killed when police opened fire on a crowd of about 4000 people.
It's also Anton Lembede's birthday today. He is pictured here on the left with AP Mda. The two were the architects of the Programme of Action which informed the African nationalism ideology of the ANC. The ANC abandoned it for the Freedom Charter. The PAC took it forward in 1959.
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