Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and its Consequences

Tom Lodge

maj 2011 · OUP Oxford

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On 21 March 1960 several hundred black Africans were injured and 69 killed when South African police opened fire on demonstrators in the township of Sharpeville, protesting against the Apartheid regime's racist 'pass' laws. The Sharpeville Massacre, as the event has become known, signalled the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa's Apartheid policies. The events at Sharpeville deeply affected the attitudes of both black and white in South Africa and provided a major stimulus to the development of an international 'Anti-Apartheid' movement. In Sharpeville, Tom Lodge explains how and why the Massacre occurred, looking at the social and political background to the events of March 1960, as well as the sequence of events that prompted the shootings themselves. He then broadens his focus to explain the long-term consequences of Sharpeville, explaining how it affected South African politics over the following decades, both domestically and also in the country's relationship with the rest of the world.

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Tom Lodge has worked in universities in Britain, South Africa, the United States, and Ireland. He held a succession of academic posts at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg between 1978 and 2005. He has written extensively on South African politics, including Mandela: A Critical Life (2006), also published by Oxford University Press. He now lectures at the University of Limerick.