1976: Panorama - After Soweto

A report filmed three years earlier and a discussion broadcast from Johannesburg consider current conditions in Soweto. Dean Desmond Tutu argues that the problems are caused by deep resentment over the inequalities generated by apartheid, whereas Dirk Richards, a government supporter, contends that the main violence was provoked by communist agitators.

It is estimated that 575 people died in the violence during the summer of 1976. These included police informers and welfare workers as well as anti-apartheid demonstrators. The majority of people who lost their lives were under the age of 25. Sam Nzima's photograph of the lifeless body of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson being carried away became the defining image of the uprising. There is now a memorial to Hector Pieterson in Soweto.

BBC Archive: Originally broadcast 21 June 1976.