The 1960 Sharpville Massacre

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Sharpville, a small town in the north east of South Africa was the setting of a devastating act of police against black protestors in the early 1960’s. The Pan-African Congress (PAC), a branch off of the African National Congress (ANC), arranged this particular gathering in an attempt to abolish South Africa’s Pass Laws. The South African Pass Laws dictated that the blacks in South Africa were required to carry a passbook at all times when visiting out of their designated home area. When the act commenced 5,000 to 7,000 protestors marched to a nearby Sharpville police station and non-violently began protesting. The protestors were inviting arrest in an attempt to grab the attention of the white minority rule. As the number of people significantly rose to 20,000 people the riot began to intensify. The number of police slowly increased as well. Then, the protestors started to throw stones to gain more attention. Unfortunately, the stones hit three police officers, which caused an inexperienced officer to open fire on these protestors causing a chain reaction of gunfire directed against these protestors. With the protestors holding nothing more harmful than stones the Sharpville police opened fire, and killing 69 people, harming 180 with some victims being women and children. Following the shooting, over 11000 protestors were detained and placed under arrest.