On the 16th of June, we as a people will rise to a new day’s dawn. However, it will not be like any other ordinary Sunday morning, where gospel songs and hymns will be the order of the day. On this coming Sunday, we will add a little prayer of thanksgiving for a generation of young people, who chose in the darkest days of our struggle to face the enemy of freedom head on. These sons and daughters through their blood, toil, tears and sweat watered the soil of freedom and out of their revolution arose flowers that have blossomed into equals in the ordering of human affairs! 

On Sunday we will join the heavenly hosts in giving thanks to a generation who exchanged their innocence for the highest price of freedom - death! They were moved by a greater conviction than narrow self-interests, they did this by chose to marry the struggle in order to achieve the full emancipation for us by denying the claws of an inferior education to sink deep into our fibre. They did not allow the fear of tear gas, dogs, beatings, imprisonment and the loss of life to deter their spirit’s conviction to return Africa to its people.

They had the faith that with every stone, every song, every march, every tyre and every chant, they could meet the brutality of the advanced weaponry of Apartheid and overcome it in the glorious war for the soul of South Africa. 

The world lay shocked at so great a resolve, so great a bravery and an even greater sacrifice. However, why was it shocking?  After all, these were the children of the Khoisan who fought pre-colonial wars for their right of self-determination. These are the children of the Xhosa people led by Hintsa, who fought the English in the frontier battles. These are the children of the Zulu people who defeated the English in the battle of Isandlwana. They are the children of the men who met in Bloemfontein to form an organisation that would fight for the liberation of all Africans. They are the offspring of Tambo, Sisulu, Sobukwe, Mandela, Madikizela Mandela, Mam’ Tambo, Mam’ Sisulu, MaNgoyi and Biko. 

In their veins flowed the dreams and aspirations of generations long gone yet oppressed. The class of 1976 stood in a class of its own, as they moved South Africa into a new trajectory. Suddenly what was a pipe dream, given the power of white minority rule, became a tangible goal. All over the world, cries of freedom could be heard. From Central London, to Moscow, from Amsterdam to Berlin, from Beijing to Mumbai, from Lusaka to Lagos, from New York to Alabama, from Sao Paulo to Mexico City, the world all over stood up because the children of Africa laid down their lives not against a language but against a system of oppression. 

Fellow Africans the blood of these giants and titans of our struggle demands a higher conviction from us all. It requires that we all put aside selfish interests and place central, the economic and social project of liberation for all at the centre of all human activity. It requires that every man be every women and child’s protector. It calls on the rich to support those who are struggling to make ends meet. It calls on every adult to be a parent to every child regardless of race, gender, religion or creed. It requires that we place Africa first over all others, as it is our home and the inheritance, we will pass down to those who will follow us.

On Sunday, we must again recommit to the goal that Africa’s best days are still ahead of it and we will in all that we do strive with all power and might to be the masters of our fate and like the class of 1976, we will with every resolve meet the price for total liberation even if it means death!

-JP