VOICES OF SHARPEVILLE, the long history of racial injustice

293pp., illus., maps, paperback, Routledge, London & New York, 2024

ISBN: 9781032191300

A history of Sharpeville, the South African township that was the site of the police massacre of March 21, 1960. Includes testimonies from inhabitants on how they coped with apartheid, why they chose to protest, how the massacre unfolded, and its aftermath.

"Sixty-three years after the apartheid killings at Sharpeville, the voices of the victims are heard, thanks to imaginative and dogged research by Nancy Clark and William Worger. And, startlingly, they report that the police count of 69 dead and 186 wounded – which has been accepted and endlessly repeated over the years – has always been a lie. This is a revelatory book."Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy-editor of The Rand Daily Mail

"Working intensively with Sharpeville’s community, Clark and Worger aim here to right the wrongs of a past that has left many of the dead unrecognised and the injured disregarded. They reconstruct a history of Sharpeville as a place, as a community, and as a memory and an icon. After more than fifty years, Sharpeville remains the place where the anti-apartheid struggle went global: and with this lucid and compelling book, we at last know why." David M. Anderson, University of Warwick

Nancy L. Clark is Dean of the Honors College and Professor of History Emeritus at Louisiana State University, and a Research Fellow at the University of the Free State.

William H. Worger is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California Los Angeles, and a Research Fellow of the University of the Free State.