Celebrating Youth Day

Youth Day is celebrated in South Africa on 16 June.  It commemorates the Soweto uprising of 1976 which took place in response to multiple issues with the Bantu Education Act and the government edict in 1974 that Afrikaans be used as medium of instruction for certain subjects in black schools.  Police opened fire on the protesting students and it was then when photographer Sam Nzima took the iconic picture of the dying 12 year old Hector Pieterson being carried away by another student while his sister ran next to them.