When the Soweto uprisings of June 1976 took place, Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu, the author of this book, was a 14-year-old pupil at Phefeni Junior Secondary School. With his classmates, he was among the active participants in the protest action against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

Contrary to the generally accepted views, both that the uprisings were ‘spontaneous’ and that there were bigger political players and student organisations behind the uprisings, Sifiso’s book shows that this was not the case. Using newspaper articles, interviews with former fellow pupils and through his own personal account, Sifiso provides us with a ‘counter-memory’ of the momentous events of that time.

This is an updated version of the book first published by Ravan Press in 1998. New material has been added, including an introduction to the new edition, as well as two new chapters analysing the historiography of the uprisings as well as reflecting on memory and commemoration as social, cultural and historical projects.

The Soweto Student Uprising of 1976 was a decisive moment in the struggle against apartheid. It marked the expansion of political activism to a new generation of young activists, but beyond that it inscribed the role that young people of subsequent generations could play in their country's future.

Since that momentous time, students have held a special place in the collective imaginary of South African history. Drawing on research and writing by leading scholars and prominent activists, Students Must Rise takes Soweto '76 as its pivot point, but looks at student and youth activism in South Africa more broadly by considering what happened before and beyond the Soweto moment. Early chapters assess the impact of the anti-pass campaigns of the 1950s, of political ideologies like Black Consciousness as well as of religion and culture in fostering political consciousness and organisation among youth and students in townships and rural areas. Later chapters explore the wide-reaching impact of June 16th itself for student organisation over the next two decades across the country. Two final chapters consider contemporary student-based political movements, including #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, and historically root these in the long and rich tradition of student activism in South Africa.

2016 marks the 40th anniversary of the 1976 June 16th uprisings. This book rethinks the conventional narrative of youth and student activism in South Africa by placing that most famous of moments - the 1976 students' uprising in Soweto - in a deeper historical and geographic context.

This book examines the active role played by Africans in the pre-colonial production of historical knowledge in South Africa, focusing on perspectives of the second king of amaZulu, King Dingane. It draws upon a wealth of oral traditions, izibongo, and the work of public intellectuals such as Magolwane kaMkhathini Jiyane and Mshongweni to present African perspectives of King Dingane as multifaceted, and in some cases, constructed according to socio-political formations and aimed at particular audiences. By bringing African perspectives to the fore, this innovative historiography centralizes indigenous African languages in the production of historical knowledge.

This book examines the active role played by Africans in the pre-colonial production of historical knowledge in South Africa, focusing on perspectives of the second king of amaZulu, King Dingane. It draws upon a wealth of oral traditions, izibongo, and the work of public intellectuals such as Magolwane kaMkhathini Jiyane and Mshongweni to present African perspectives of King Dingane as multifaceted, and in some cases, constructed according to socio-political formations and aimed at particular audiences. By bringing African perspectives to the fore, this innovative historiography centralizes indigenous African languages in the production of historical knowledge.

The post-apartheid era in South Africa has, in the space of nearly two decades, experienced a massive memory boom, manifest in a plethora of new memorials and museums and in the renaming of streets, buildings, cities and more across the country. This memorialisation is intricately linked to questions of power, liberation and public history in the making and remaking of the South African nation. Ali Khangela Hlongwane and Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu analyse an array of these liberation heritage sites, including the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, the June 16, 1976 Interpretation Centre, the Apartheid Museum and the Mandela House Museum, foregrounding the work of migrant workers, architects, visual artists and activists in the practice of memorialisation. As they argue, memorialisation has been integral to the process of state and nation formation from the pre-colonial era through the present day.