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The Sharpeville Massacre, as the bloodletting ordeal has come to be known, was a watershed moment in the lives of our people, standing up to be counted, demanding to be heard, claiming their rights as equal citizens in the land of their birth.

Editorial: Sharpville 69 deserve more than this

Saturday, 21 March, marks 66 years since 69 people were killed and close to 200 others injured when police opened fire on marchers in Sharpeville on this date in 1960. All things…

Patriotic fervour: Last year’s Reconciliation Day theme was enshrined on the call for
South Africans to deepen the commitment to unity, healing, forgiveness and nation-
building for shared future.

Reconciliation remains an elusive ideal

While a bridge may symbolise connection, many South Africans still begin their journeys from vastly unequal social starting points

Poster child: A boy holds a Nelson Mandela election placard in 1994 in Lindelani, outside Durban. Photo: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images

Echoes of apartheid: Who were you then and who would you be today?

As we go to the polls, and in the light of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, we should reflect on what freedom means and the power of our vote

(Photo by Xabiso Mkhabela/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Ramaphosa says the EFF abused rights by ‘compelling’ people to protest

The president conceded the country could not claim to respect human rights if it did not ensure equal access to land, housing, food, water, healthcare and education

No answers: Lesley Chauke, the younger brother of Orlando Pirates player Eric ‘Chippa’ Chauke, visits his brother’s grave in Avalon Cemetery in Soweto. The soccer star was murdered in 2008 and his killers have never been found. Photo: Nhlanhla Phillips

Cold case haunts Bucs star Chippa Chauke’s family

His family suspects a cover-up after the Bucs star was murdered in Soweto after he was questioned by the police

Freestyle pantsula dancers in Soweto, Johannesburg, 2016. (Photo: Chris Saunders)

Why place matters in celebrating Jo’burg’s club history

The history of clubbing in Jo’burg is less about physical space and fading memories, but about the sheer, frightful necessity of dancing

Bigger than Sharpeville: Story of South Africa’s worst apartheid-era massacre retold

Review: Bloody Sunday: The Nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre by Mignonne Breier

Solidarity: On a pavement in Cali, candles spell out the words “for our dead” during a vigil on 5 May in honour of the demonstrators who died during protests against the government. The current death toll is at least 45 people. Photo: Luis Robayo/AFP

#SOSColombia: Remember Sharpeville?

The Colombian government’s violent repression of political dissent is dangerous

Global influences: Soldiers back up police at Madala Hostel in Alexandra to get people to comply with Covid-19 rules. (Photo: Luca Sola/AFP)

SA in dire need of a political spring tide

The only time change has occurred in South Africa is in response to global events such as World War II. The country is once again facing such an event — Covid-19 — and will have…

A man seems to be praying, singing or conducting a band (above). His outfit blends into an infinite background that appears to suspend him in a fantastical world. (Tsepo Gumbi)

Sharpeville is much more than the site of a massacre

Tsepo Gumbi’s photographs bring a more complex view of a place that has been so singularly defined as to be unknowable

Desecration: ArcelorMittal churned up graves to accommodate a fence on its steelworks, which pollute the air near the town of Vanderbijlpark. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)

Graves bulldozed for security fence

ArcelorMittal, charged with toxic air and water pollution, seems to have bulldozed through graves to create a perimeter fence

An ANC election campaign poster lies in the rubbish in Sharpeville. (Ihsaan Haffejee/M&G)

Splurge does little for Sharpeville

Residents are angry that commemorating the massacre has not resulted in a better life for them

Good shot: Nomvo Booi is seen here with comrades at the Bamagamoyo camp at Mothopheng Military College in Tanzania (Supplied)

Nomvo ‘Poqokazi’ Booi, a mother of the struggle

Nomvo Booi was as important to the battle against apartheid as her male counterparts

Nandi Mayathula-Khoza

Steely resolve, unrelenting gaze

Veteran photographer Peter Magubane inspires both hero worship and interrogation, proof that at 86, he’s passed into the realm of legend

Unreal reality: Gazans run for cover from Israeli army gunfire and teargas during a protest against the United States moving its embassy to Jerusalem on the eve of al Nakba.

Gaza bleeds while Israel celebrates

The bitter conflict highlights the shame of the world after 70 years of Palestinian suffering

Now his elections as provincial leader has been secured

Don’t exclude DA foot soldiers – Moodey

The Gauteng leader is worried that the party is deliberately alienating delegates from townships

An image of a household in Sharpeville from Jabulani Dhlamini’s photo series Recaptured.

Subtle views reframe Sharpeville

Two photographers view the township in ways that avoid crass politicisation of the March 21 1960 massacre.

The anti-pass march on March 21 1960 in Soweto started from Robert Sobukwe’s house.

Memories of anti-apartheid bravery are fading in Mofolo

Many know about Sharpeville. Few know about the anti-pass march in Soweto on the same day in March 1960.

The most obvious option left for the ANC should Zuma decide not follow the party’s directive for his recall would be to vote him out of office in a motion of no confidence.

Zuma warns against racists who use art, ‘like cartoonists’

President Jacob Zuma spoke out against racism at a Human Rights Day celebration at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Monday.

Government would work even harder in the next five years to ensure every household has access to decent schools

Election promises dominate Zuma’s Human Rights Day speech

President Jacob Zuma promised more services, schooling, jobs and healthcare in a polls-focused speech, as the DA and EFF descended on Sharpeville.