On this Youth Day, 16 June, as South Africa once again marks the courage of the young people who rose up in Soweto in 1976, it is worth remembering something easily lost in our present climate of division: that the fight against apartheid was never a struggle of one race against another, but of ordinary South Africans—black and white—who chose justice over comfort, humanity over fear, and principle over personal safety.
In those dark years, white lawyers, judges, church leaders, and everyday citizens stood alongside black students, parents, and activists, often at great personal and professional cost. Their solidarity, forged in courtrooms, townships, and prison visits, proved that moral courage could cross the colour line.
Looking back, those alliances remain a powerful reminder that South Africa’s best future has always depended not on deepening old divides, but on rediscovering the common humanity that once helped bring apartheid down.
In June 1976, South Africa was on the brink of a new and decisive chapter in its struggle against apartheid. As a young lawyer who had only recently joined Bowman Gilfillan & Blacklock, I found myself drawn into the heart of that upheaval.
The Soweto Uprising began on 16 June when students rose up against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. What followed was a wave of protests, arrests, and violence. One particularly striking episode came a few months later, in October 1976, when around a thousand students from Soweto made their way secretly into central Johannesburg.
Their reasoning was simple and poignant: if they protested in a “white area,” perhaps they would not be shot down as they had been in the townships. They gathered in the Library Gardens, and while they were not fired upon, the riot police arrested 159 of them.
Extraordinary
The charges were extraordinary. The students faced not only the expected counts of unlawful gathering and riotous assembly but, by the doctrine of common purpose, were held responsible for every petty crime—pickpocketing, theft, robbery—that occurred anywhere in central Johannesburg that morning. It was a sweeping attempt to criminalise an entire protest.
Parents and students turned to the South African Council of Churches (SACC) under Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Black Parents Association led by Dr Nthato Motlana.
Finding lawyers willing to take these cases was extraordinarily difficult. Only a handful of firms—Shun Chetty’s practice, Bowman Gilfillan, Bell Dewar, and, in the case of some work, Webber Wentzel—were prepared to act. At Bowman Gilfillan we had already been inundated with cases from Protea Magistrates’ Court in Soweto, so the 159 students’ matter naturally came to us.
These were not ordinary accused. They were the brightest and most courageous young people Soweto had to offer—the top matriculants from schools like Morris Isaacson, from stable families, and natural leaders who had shown real courage by venturing into the city centre.
While they were held for many months, scattered across police stations to make our work harder, we arranged visits, food parcels, and interviews. Their mothers insisted they had simply gone into town to buy produce for their market stalls. The students themselves told a different story: they had gone to protest the forced use of Afrikaans.
Unacceptable intimidation
The trial in Protea Magistrates’ Court was intense. We assembled a formidable team, including Ismail Mohammed (later a Constitutional Court judge), Clifford Mailer, and George Bizos. We even withdrew from the case temporarily when the prosecutor insisted on wearing a handgun in court—an unacceptable intimidation.
Eventually the Chief Magistrate intervened, and through skilled negotiation, particularly by Ismail Mohammed, most charges were reduced. Those under 18 received cautions and discharges; those over 18 received modest fines, paid by the SACC. One 16-year-old boy, charged with possession of a petrol bomb, was eventually acquitted. It was a partial victory, but more importantly, it introduced me to the extraordinary calibre of Soweto’s student leadership.
By 1978 I was exhausted. Two years of relentless work in the townships, facing hostile security police, kangaroo-court magistrates, and heavy sentences (including floggings for teenagers) had taken their toll.
My wife was pregnant with our son, Ed, and the personal strain was considerable. I was hoping to return to ordinary commercial litigation when Mrs Mosheshle arrived at our offices with a referral from the SACC. Her son Dexter was one of eight accused in the murder of Dr Melville Edelstein.
Dr Edelstein was a respected white social worker in Soweto who had been brutally killed on the morning of 16 June 1976. The government was determined to portray the murder as having been orchestrated by the ANC and the student leadership. They sought a show trial that would both demonise the uprising’s leaders and warn white South Africans against any sympathy with black aspirations.
Alleged brutal torture
Five of the accused (later six under our representation) came to Bowman Gilfillan. We were joined by candidate attorneys Sheila Camerer and Leon Goosen. The clients maintained their innocence and alleged brutal torture by a notorious security policeman known as Dempsey. We built strong alibi defences and gathered evidence of assaults.
Remarkably, days before the trial was due to begin in Springs, the State withdrew charges against our clients. Only two others remained, including an 18-year-old school dropout nicknamed Tiza (Dlamini), who had a compelling alibi.
With George Bizos as counsel, we pursued that alibi. Leon Goosen performed heroics, entering Soweto amid renewed unrest, bluffing his way into a burnt-out clinic by pretending to be a policeman, and retrieving Dlamini’s medical records.
The nurse and Dlamini’s sister provided powerful corroboration. Dexter, now free, courageously testified about the pattern of torture. In a trial-within-a-trial on the admissibility of the confession, the judge ultimately excluded it—not because he believed our witnesses, but because of a narrow technical gap in the State’s evidence. The men were acquitted, though the judge could not resist adding that this did not mean they were innocent, only that the State had failed to prove guilt.
These cases taught me profound lessons.
They exposed the machinery of injustice—lying policemen, biased magistrates, predetermined outcomes—yet also showed that principled lawyering could still make a difference.
Beyond the courtroom
We secured withdrawals, acquittals, and exposed abuses that reverberated beyond the courtroom. The work was gruelling, poorly paid, and personally risky. Bowman Gilfillan faced a public backlash, threats from major clients, and internal tensions, yet the firm’s leadership stood firm on the principle that lawyers must defend unpopular causes. That courage left a lasting impression on me.
Looking back, I do not know whether my career would have taken exactly this path without 1976–78, but the experience was formative.
I had entered the profession as a politically aware liberal with socialist leanings and a trade-union family background. These cases deepened my commitment and connected me personally with extraordinary South Africans—many of whom I would work with again in the union movement, including Cyril Ramaphosa, whom I had first represented years earlier.
What stays with me most is the humanity I encountered.
Content of my character
In the Fort (now the site of the Constitutional Court), in Soweto, and in the courts, I was judged by the content of my character rather than the colour of my skin.
That ethos of human solidarity, so powerful then, feels painfully diminished today. These young people—bright, brave, and full of potential—reminded me why the struggle mattered, and why, even when the odds seemed impossible, one had to stand and be counted.
[Image: June 16 Memorial Acre, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mastababa/237710819/in/photostream/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend