A photo of a 12-year-old shot dead by police in
1976 travelled the globe. Now the family of the
teenager who tried to save him reflect on South
Africa then and now
-Mystery of a man whose image defined
apartheid brutality
Ntsiki Makhubo, whose brother was photographed carrying
the lifeless body of Hector Pieterson in 1976
The sky above was dark with smoke. At the railway
station, as Ntsiki Makhubo and her mother
returned from a day in Johannesburg, they were
met by an anxious crowd.
As they stepped down from the train, they trod on
shattered glass and heard the news. Your brother
has been shot and killed, Makhubo was told.
When South African police opened fire on
marching schoolchildren in the township of Soweto
on 16 June 1976, Makhubo’s neighbours had seen
her older brother, 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo,
drenched in blood and staggering to a clinic,
carrying a limp boy in his arms. They assumed he
had been gravely hurt.
In fact, it was the 12-year-old boy Mbuyisa had
scooped up in the midst of the chaos who lost his
life that day. His name was Hector Pieterson. A
photograph of the two taken by a local journalist
was printed first by a local newspaper, and then
around the world.
It would go on to have a huge impact, prompting
global outrage at the police’s brutality, becoming
an iconic image of the struggle against a hated
racist system and prompting a new wave of protest
that would eventually lead to the end of apartheid.
Today, South Africa commemorates the 40th
anniversary of the Soweto uprising, as that day is
now known. No one knows exactly how many
people died – estimates range from 150 to 700
during the months of subsequent violence.
But the anniversary – like the famous photograph –
will provoke a variety of reactions, not all of them
easily reconciled.
1976 travelled the globe. Now the family of the
teenager who tried to save him reflect on South
Africa then and now
-Mystery of a man whose image defined
apartheid brutality
Ntsiki Makhubo, whose brother was photographed carrying
the lifeless body of Hector Pieterson in 1976
The sky above was dark with smoke. At the railway
station, as Ntsiki Makhubo and her mother
returned from a day in Johannesburg, they were
met by an anxious crowd.
As they stepped down from the train, they trod on
shattered glass and heard the news. Your brother
has been shot and killed, Makhubo was told.
When South African police opened fire on
marching schoolchildren in the township of Soweto
on 16 June 1976, Makhubo’s neighbours had seen
her older brother, 18-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo,
drenched in blood and staggering to a clinic,
carrying a limp boy in his arms. They assumed he
had been gravely hurt.
In fact, it was the 12-year-old boy Mbuyisa had
scooped up in the midst of the chaos who lost his
life that day. His name was Hector Pieterson. A
photograph of the two taken by a local journalist
was printed first by a local newspaper, and then
around the world.
It would go on to have a huge impact, prompting
global outrage at the police’s brutality, becoming
an iconic image of the struggle against a hated
racist system and prompting a new wave of protest
that would eventually lead to the end of apartheid.
Today, South Africa commemorates the 40th
anniversary of the Soweto uprising, as that day is
now known. No one knows exactly how many
people died – estimates range from 150 to 700
during the months of subsequent violence.
But the anniversary – like the famous photograph –
will provoke a variety of reactions, not all of them
easily reconciled.