Abiel Lebelo
Abiel Lebelo was a South African student from Soweto shot and killed during the weeks that followed the 1976 Soweto uprising.[1][2]
Activism and death in Soweto Uprising
In 1976, Lebelo was a student and a prefect at Madibane High School in Diepkloof, Gauteng. In the weeks that followed the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976, protests spread to more schools and locations, and Lebelo was elected as the executive committee member of the Soweto Student Representative Council (SSRC) launched on August 2, 1976.[3]
Two days later on August 4, the SSRC organised a workers stayaway while students attempted to march from Soweto to John Vorster Police Station. Witnesses from the student group Joy Rabotapi and Jeff Diale report Lebelo was with them in a group blocking the road now known as Soweto Highway, in support of the stayaway.[4] Police opened fire on the students and Lebelo sustained fatal injuries, dying in the arms of Diale.
Commemoration
In June 2016, in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, the city of Johannesburg unveiled a plaque in Lebelo's memory outside Madibane High School,[5][6][7][8] now a part of the Soweto Heritage Trail tracing the route of the youth uprising of 1976. The unveiling was capped with a march, attended by roughly a hundred people, "to finish the march that the students had not been able to complete as they had been arrested and killed."[9]
References
- ↑ "S. Africans unite to remember Soweto uprising". South African History Online. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
- ↑ "Marcus Motaung". South African History Online. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
- ↑ "Khanye Journal 2004" (PDF). populareducation.co.za. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
- ↑ Gori, Hasina (11 June 2016). "1976 Uprising victim Abiel Lebelo honored -..." SABC News. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
- ↑ "Mayor Tau unveils plaque for 1976 activist". City of Johannesburg. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
- ↑ "40 years after students sparked apartheid's end, a new anger". The Associated Press. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
- ↑ "S. Africans unite to remember Soweto uprising". The China Post. 13 June 2016. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
- ↑ Cara, Anna (19 June 2016). "40 years after students sparked apartheid's end, a new anger". St. Louis Post dispatch. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ↑ "Afrique du Sud : à Soweto, les limites de la réconciliation éclatent en plein jour". Leral. 13 June 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
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