Erected in memory of the 1976 student protest, when police opened fire on hundreds of Sowetan schoolchildren who were peacefully demonstrating against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in their schools. Inside are video footage of the event and many moving photographs taken by brave and talented photographers like Peter Mangubane and Sam Nzima, including the infamous shot of Hector Pieterson — one of the young boys who died in a hail of police bullets — being carried by a young man whose face is contorted in disbelief and pain. Hector’s sister runs alongside, her mouth a silent wail of grief.
The police reported 59 dead; the actual toll was thought to be closer to 500. Children turned on their parents, something hitherto unheard of in traditional society, and destroyed everything they could belonging to municipal authority — schools, post offices, and the ubiquitous beer halls. The police retaliated with brutal assaults, arrests, and killings. These photographs offer a window on the anger, the fear, the aggression, and the grief of these times, after which Soweto and South Africa were never to be the same.