Police temporarily suspend enforcement of pass laws

Police opened fire on an unarmed anti-pass gathering at Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding about 180. The massacre transformed resistance inside South Africa and international opposition to...

Police violence also struck the anti-pass protest at Langa near Cape Town. Two people were killed and dozens wounded, placing Langa within the same national wave of resistance and repression as...

Prime Minister Verwoerd praised the police and denied that the violence reflected opposition to apartheid. Authorities also detained PAC leaders and prepared sedition charges.

Robert Sobukwe, P. K. Leballo and eleven others were charged with incitement following the protests. The prosecutions formed part of a rapid state crackdown.

Representatives of 29 African and Asian countries asked the Security Council to address the crisis in South Africa, helping move apartheid repression onto the international agenda.

The ANC called a national strike and day of mourning. Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela publicly burned their passbooks as communities protested police killings and pass laws.

The government imposed emergency rule across major urban areas and detained more than 2,000 people, using exceptional powers to suppress the expanding anti-pass movement.

An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people marched from surrounding townships into central Cape Town. Kgosana negotiated their peaceful dispersal, after which the state intensified repression.

In its first action on South Africa, the Security Council deplored the killings and called on the government to abandon apartheid and racial discrimination.

The act gave the government power to declare organizations unlawful. It created the legal mechanism used immediately against the main African liberation movements.