The consequences of the Sharpeville Massacre

The consequences of the Sharpeville Massacre.

The Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), a splinter group of the African National Congress (ANC), arranged a countrywide protest for the repeal of South Africa’s pass laws on March 21, 1960. Participants were told to surrender their passes and invite arrest.

Pass laws were a type of internal passport system used to segregate people, manage urbanization, and distribute migrant labor. Until it was formally ended in 1986, pass laws were one of the most prominent features of the country’s apartheid system.

The Sharpeville Massacre occurred in 1960 as a result of a peaceful protest against apartheid-era South African policies.

On March 21, 1960, the Sharpeville Massacre took place at a police station in the Transvaal township of Sharpeville. A crowd of about 7,000 demonstrators marched to the police station after a day of protests against pass laws.

The Sharpeville massacre was primarily caused by the police response to the protest. The police officers at the police station (Sharpeville Township) responded to the protest with excessive force. They killed 69 people when they opened fire on a crowd of people peacefully protesting repressive pass laws.

Every year on March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination commemorates the Sharpeville Massacre.

The Sharpeville Massacre sparked an international civil-society movement against South Africa’s white minority government, resulting in the regime’s first major diplomatic defeat. The White racist South Africa was excluded from the British Commonwealth in 1961.

The Sharpeville Massacre brought apartheid’s atrocities to the attention of the international community. Hundreds of mass protests by black South Africans followed the massacre, many of which were ruthlessly and brutally suppressed by the South African police.

Foreign countries have imposed embargoes as a result of the ban on political opposition parties. Nelson Mandela became a symbol of peaceful protest after his arrest.

As international sympathy for the black South African people grew, International investors began to withdraw from South Africa and share prices on the South African Stock Exchange plunged, resulting in an economic downturn.