Question

What happened to Hector and his classmates? Why did it happen?

Answer 1

Hint: South Africa is a country that has people of several races. In South Africa black people who belong to South Africa, whites who came there to settle, and Indians who came as labourers and traders. There was discrimination among whites and black people.

Complete answer:
Non-whites were not allowed to vote. The best land in the country was reserved for the white people, and non- whites had to live on the worst available land. Thus blacks and coloured people were not considered to be equal to whites. Hector was example of such discrimination.
One black township was South Western Township (Soweto). Hector Pieterson lived here and he and his classmates joined the protest against learning the Afrikaans language in school. This was the language that the whites spoke. Hector and other school students were being forced to learn this language but they wanted to learn their own language, Zulu. The South African police beat up the protestors mercilessly and shot at the crowd. One of their bullets killed Hector. This was on 16 June 1976.
Hector and his classmates protested against learning the Africans language in school. This was the language that white spoke. They were forced to learn this language, but they wanted to learn their own language Zulu.

Note: The African National Congress, a group of people who led the struggle against apartheid, and their most well known leader, Nelson Mandela fought the apartheid system for several years. Finally, they succeeded and in 1994 South Africa became a democratic country in which people of all races were considered equal.