Nomination of the June 16 Route as National Heritage Site

The 1976 Youth Uprisings, which started with the protests by Soweto students against the use of Afrikaans as the language for tuition on 16 June 1976, played a critical role in the history of South Africa and the struggle against Apartheid. In the early 1990s, the ANC Youth League erected a memorial close to where 12-year-old Hector Pieterson was fatally shot. A museum dedicated to the 1976 Youth Uprisings was officially opened on 16 June 2002 and SAHRA erected a Memorial Boulder in the same vicinity of the Hector Pieterson Memorial (close to the Uncle Tom’s Municipal Hall). The site, comprising of the Museum and memorials, was graded as a Grade 1 site on 23rd September 2006