On Saturday, January 14th, we held a senior activity - mostly a tour to Soweto. Here we are listening to our guide telling us about the house that Nelson Mandela died in. It is near the office in Johannesburg. The young man in the picture is one of two grandsons visiting their grandparents who are our Humanitarian couple - the Walstons.
Monument at the Supreme Court in Johannesburg, Pretoria had the Parliament, Cape Town the President.
The National Stadium in Soweto - holds 94,700 people. When Barack Obama came to speak at Nelson Mandela's funeral there were over 100,000 plus overflow at other stadiums. This was built for the 2010 World Cup in Soccer.
On June 16th, 1976 - most of the high school students in Soweto marched peacefully to protest the white government's insistence that Afrikaans language be the only one taught in the nation's schools.
Although they marched peacefully the police felt threatened and shot this 12 year old boy - Hector Pieterson. The peaceful went away and there were riots all over the country - many schools were burned down and it was the beginning of the end of white rule or Apartheid. Nelson Mandela was in jail for 27 years and not until February of 1990 was he released. The president of SA and Mandela began meetings to end Apartheid - on the 27th of April, 1994 was the first national voting and Mandela was elected the first black president of South Africa.
Monument to the teenage school children and their protest that began in 1976 - June 16th is a National Holiday now - called Youth Day. It honors those killed during so many years of violence.
These nuclear cooling towers were built in Soweto - and the energy they made was only used in Johannesburg. Black people who had a paper pass could travel to work in J0-burg, but not live there. They were all replaced to Soweto. These towers are now a bungee jump! see the line between the towers - No Way!!
These panels in the Supreme Court of South Africa are the same meters apart as a solitary cell in the prisons for black people. Mandela suffered many years in solitary confinement - you could sit or stand, not lay down - so cruel. For 18 years he lived at the prison on Robbin Island - near Cape Town. When he was released as he walked out he spoke about forgiving!
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