The mapping of the June 16 1976 Soweto student uprisings routes: past recollections and present reconstruction(s)*

The June 16 1976 Soweto Uprisings are continuously being memorialized as public history in various ways. One of these ways has been the mapping of the routes used by students on that historic and fateful day and their formal recognition as ‘historical trails’. The article seeks to identify as closely as possible the several routes traveled by different groups of students, and to recognise that the memories of the marchers from the ‘class of 76’ have given rise to many, sometimes conflicting, narratives. This mapping process is seen as part of the process of remembering and memorializing the diverse facets of the South African liberation project. Drawing on rich resources of oral history as well as from the paper trail of student writings and police records, this article revisits and documents the recollections of students, teachers, parents and police, in order to consider the debates and contestations on the causes of the uprisings, who did and who did not particpate, and the political or ideological body of ideas that influenced students of the time.