While outwardly we emulated the lives of rebellious youngsters everywhere in the world, there was a more serious side, a hidden, secret side to some of us.

Since my days in Munsieville, I had woken up to the deprivation of my race. But since early in 1960, on the 21st of March to be exact, more and more, I simmered in indignation and resentment against the government. More than that, I knew I had come to understand and accept that I couldn't just sit and watch while black people were being wantonly mowed down.

That day, at Sharpeville, a township outside the town of Vereeniging, what started as a peaceful protest march against pass laws, the mandatory carrying of what was called dompas, saw sixty-nine men, women and children killed and up to three hundred and eighty wounded. The march had been organised by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and an unarmed crowd of about seven thousand people gathered at Sharpeville police station to hand over their passes and offer themselves for arrest. Their slogan ‘No bail, no defence, no fine!’ That says it all. The protest was peaceful. The outcome sought? Jamming the jails.

But, without warning instructing the crowd to disperse, the police started shooting – using live ammunition. Fleeing, people were shot in the back.

On the same day in Langa Township outside of Cape Town, thirty thousand people had gathered to hand in their passes. Violence was again unleashed by the police on the protesters and resulted in the deaths of two people and the injury of fifty.

Swiftly, black people reacted in an uproar. There were mass demonstrations, protest marches, strikes and riots throughout the country. At the end of March, the government declared a five-month state of emergency, detaining thousands of people. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), leader was among those arrested. He was later sentenced to three years in jail for burning his pass. The African National Congress (ANC) and PAC were banned on the 8th of April that year and membership of those organisations became illegal. From then on, the stage was set for the political drama that would play itself out in South Africa, over the next thirty years, as positions on each side (government and liberation movements) hardened.