Youth day

What a day it was 43 years ago.

On June 16 th 1977 I was living in Soweto.

What a day it was 43 years ago!

As a student at Wits university in the 1970’s I was refused access to the whites only student residences on campus. So I lived at Glynn Thomas House at The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Orlando for four years until 1980 when I graduated.

It was surreal to have moved into Soweto in January of that year only 6 months after the awful shootings in 1976. Having been beaten by police for the previous two years for refusing to study Afrikaans in school as a protest against apartheid.

But we move on. Wounds heal. Today I am married to an amazing Afrikaans lady and am completely bilingual.

The first anniversary of that momentous day was a somber and sad event. An event that went on to transform our country. Those lives lost should not be in vain. Let us continue to strive for a nonracial democracy with equal opportunity and fair outcomes for all.

We are not done.

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