going to do next? Whom are you going to mobilize? What kind of pamphlets will you produce? Which people will you target?
The youngsters differed from the activists of the 1950s in their restless eagerness. Nelson Mandela’s generation had been willing to work, slowly and methodically, towards their goals. By contrast, Tsietsi and his counterparts were impatient to do things that seemed rash and immature; the victories in Mozambique and Angola dazzled the youths, at times clouding their judgement. They often clashed with their mentor. Still, Tsietsi struck Drake as extraordinary, possessing a fearless nature and charisma which, in Drake’s view, were the essence of leadership.
The student activists understood they had a unique opportunity. After toiling for years to build a following, a single event had suddenly engaged Soweto’s youngsters. Now they had to devise a way to tap that politicization. Drake and other, more experienced, government opponents pressed the students to think beyond the narrow issue of Afrikaans instruction. A sustainable revolt needed to embrace a broad range of grievances; it should also attempt to involve adults.
As a first step, the Action Committee members decided to enlarge their group to include representatives from every secondary and junior secondary institution in Soweto. Tsietsi and his colleagues traversed the township after classes resumed at the end of July, urging students to send delegates from each school to a meeting at Morris Issacson High School on August 2. They also exhorted youngsters to return to classes, which many were still boycotting; school was the only place in which everyone could be organized.
Dozens of students appeared at Morris Issacson on the appointed day, dressed in their respective uniforms. (The school’s principal sympathized with the uprising and turned a blind eye to their presence.) Tsietsi presided over the meeting. Two students from each of the township’s forty secondary schools were elected as representatives. Tsietsi retained his position of chairman; Murphy Morobe became the vice-chairman, replacing Seth Mazibuko, who had been detained after June 16. During a break in the proceedings, the journalist Duma Ndlovu sought out Tsietsi and a few of his colleagues. ‘What do I call you guys now?’ he asked. After some discussion, Duma dubbed them the Soweto Students’ Representative Council; the group’s new title, along with the photograph he took of Tsietsi, arms upraised in triumph, appeared in Duma’s story the next day.
When the meeting resumed, Tsietsi launched into a forceful argument for organizing a march into town and a general strike. The two protests had been planned in advance by the old Action Committee at the urging of Drake Koka and others. Tsietsi told the representatives that the students would march to the security police headquarters in Johannesburg on August 4 to demand the release of the detainees. If we take our demonstration into town where there are lots of whites, Tsietsi asserted, the police will be loath to shoot so readily.
Students would involve their parents by convincing them to stay away from work for three days, beginning on August 4. The strike was intended to show support for the children’s demands. The school representatives peppered Tsietsi with questions about the stay-away; with little knowledge of the ANC’s protest campaigns of the 1950s, they were incredulous. Tsietsi explained: We don’t have guns, but we have economic power. If our parents don’t go to work for even a half-day, think of how much white South Africa could lose. If we hurt the capitalists, those capitalists are going to start talking to the government. And the government will have to address our demands.
The representatives agreed to both proposals. They also decided that the Black Parents’ Association would present a list of demands about Bantu education, on their behalf, to the government. The meeting adjourned on a buoyant note: everyone was eager to begin the protests again. Mpho, who had been elected as a representative of his school, was preparing to leave the hall when Tsietsi stopped him. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Tsietsi asked softly. Mpho nodded. ‘You know, if I had my way, you wouldn’t be here,’ Tsietsi continued. Mpho nodded again, thrilled at his brother’s concern. Tsietsi enquired about Joseph and Nomkhitha and the raids on the house until a group of admirers engulfed him, cutting off the brothers and ending their conversation.
Tsietsi and his colleagues spent the next two days working furiously to organize the protests. Word quickly spread among students of the impending march. But the Soweto Students’ Representative Council (or SSRC, as it came to be known) wanted the youngsters to give their parents pamphlets about the stay-away. The activists used various sources to produce the literature, Drake Koka among them. Drake found a young printer in Johannesburg who sympathized with the uprising and convinced him it was his duty to help.
He met the printer at his building at midnight. After paying the watchman a small bribe to gain entry, the two conspirators worked almost until dawn. Drake sent the printer home to the township in a taxi; he did not want the young man to risk being caught in Drake’s car with the illegal literature. Drake stuffed the pamphlets into three boxes, which he placed on the back seat of his Volkswagen Beetle. He planned to leave them at an agreed site, to be retrieved and distributed by his young protégés. On the front passenger seat, Drake put a large birthday cake for his daughter’s party in the afternoon. Then he started for Soweto.
A policeman stopped him at a roadblock on the outskirts of the township. Drake immediately hopped out of the car and opened the boot, which was empty. ‘Ah, you know what to do!’ the policeman said in Afrikaans.
‘Yes, baas,’ Drake replied, playing the meek African. ‘I want to help as much as possible. Oh, these tsotsis, they’re doing such terrible things.’
Pleased, the policeman strolled around the Beetle and saw the cake sitting on the front seat. ‘Is it someone’s birthday then?’
‘Yes, baas, my little girl. And we would be honoured if you could come around and join us for a cup of tea this afternoon.’
Seeming more pleased, the officer declined. He told Drake he could go – without bothering to examine the contents of the boxes on the back seat. Drake jumped into the car and drove off, sweat pouring down his back.
On the morning of August 4, before daylight, thousands of youngsters descended on Soweto’s railway stations. They posted themselves at the entrances, armed with placards that read Azikhwelwa! – We won’t ride. (The slogan came from the protest campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s; students plucked it from a banned book recounting the history of the anti-apartheid struggle.) Those adults who tried to push their way into the stations were assaulted by the youths, sometimes with stones. Commuters in vehicles fared little better: the students erected roadblocks at the edge of the township, stopping cars that tried to pass and threatening their drivers.
The SSRC’s march began later in the morning. The plan was much the same as that of June 16, with older students setting off from their respective schools and gathering others along the way. Tsietsi led the group from Morris Issacson. This time, the demonstrators brandished placards of a different sort: ‘Release the Detained Students’ they demanded; and ‘It Happened In Mozambique, It Can Happen Here’. The change reflected an evolution from protesting against forced Afrikaans instruction to opposing the political system itself. Indeed, the government had relented on the language issue when schools reopened in July, but the uprising had, by now, progressed too far. And, in contrast with June 16, this time thousands of adults who had not gone to work joined the young demonstrators. An estimated 15,000 people converged on a main road leading out of Soweto to march into town; they were a disciplined group, flashing peace signs at policemen who lined the streets and calling out to black security officers to join them.
A barricade of ‘hippos’ stopped the marchers near the New Canada railway station at the north-eastern edge of the township. Using loudhailers, the police instructed the demonstrators to return home; when they tried to advance, the police began lobbing tear gas into the crowd. The marchers stopped and regrouped. With shouts of ‘Peace!’ and ‘We only want our brothers who are in prison!’ they
