Cape Town disturbances 1976, papers

Ephemera, broadsheets, press accounts, oral testimonies, student publications, etc.

The collection is organised in files under the following heads: Leaflets circulating in Cape Town during the riots; Education; University of Cape Town Students' Representative Council; Students for Social Democracy; the Church; Union of Black Journalists; Liberal organisations; the Transvaal Chamber of Industries; Press cuttings; Oral accounts collected by the History Workshop; Chronological material compiled by the History Workshop; Oral reactions to the Stellenbosch Riots.

In August 1976 schoolchildren in the `coloured' and black townships of Cape Town followed the example of young people in Soweto, and boycotted schools and called for a general strike. The protest against a ruling on the use of Afrikaans in schools, developed into a general confrontation which in Cape Town lasted over two months. It included several waves of rioting in the townships, a demonstration in the city centre, the burning down of schools and administrative offices, an attempted general strike in September, and savage police reprisals, as well as the detention of several hundred people without trial. The events in the Cape were remarkable, not only for their extent and duration but also because, to a degree that had never occurred before, sections of the black and the `coloured' community were united in political protest.

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Originally published by Access to Archives - A2A. The data in this finding aid is in the copyright of the place of deposit.