Students on the frontline: South Africa and the US share a history of protest against white supremacy

Every year on 16 June, South Africa commemorates the revolt of black school children against the inferior “bantu education” system on that day in 1976. The horror of police shooting and killing unarmed children caused a global uproar. Historian Rico Devara Chapman’s research interests include a focus on the African diaspora’s historical and contemporary struggles for justice, particularly student activism in the United States and South Africa. We asked him about similarities between student revolts under the systems of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow in the United States.

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You draw parallels between Jim Crow and apartheid. Please explain.