Amandla is Unity: Learning from the Soweto ‘76 Student Uprisings
Organized by Marla Jaksch, Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
February 6 to March 6, 2026
Galleries 111 and 119 AIMM Building
Opening Reception, Friday, February 13th, 5 pm
The Amandla is Unity exhibition foregrounds the work of youth activists in the fight against apartheid in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the Soweto student uprisings in 1976. Student-led protests against the apartheid government’s educational directives, which included the Bantu Education Act and the institution of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, coalesced into a South African Student Movement. Students organized a peaceful march on June 16, 1976 that attracted thousands of high school students. Along the march route youth were met by heavily armed police who fired tear gas and later live ammunition. 12 year-old student Hector Pieterson was shot and killed. The news of Pieterson’s death, and the violent response to peaceful protests of students, lead to student protests across South Africa and the globe.
The title of the exhibition draws from the popular rallying cry in the resistance against apartheid. Amandla is a Xhosa and Zulu word meaning power or strength. Protestors would call out ‘Amandla’ and others would respond with ‘Ngawethu’ (‘to us’) meaning ‘the power is ours’. This event (and resulting activism) is commemorated through a South African national holiday, Youth Day, which honors all the young people who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid and Bantu Education.
The multi-sited exhibition features items from a collection of objects (buttons, comics, posters, maps, slides, recordings, photos, textiles, books, pamphlets, postcards, recordings, and other ephemera) related to the Soweto ‘76 student uprisings, organized and co-curated by TCNJ student researchers. The Apartheid Heritage(s) collection is under the stewardship of Dr. Marla Jaksch, and is housed in Bliss Hall. The exhibition will take place between two small gallery spaces in AIMM and public areas in the Gitenstein Library.
The AIMM exhibits will be curated between two adjacent spaces. The first gallery will feature a reading and study space, with selections pulled from the one of a kind, out of print books, pamphlets, posters and comic book collection and space for quiet reflection. It will also include a listening booth that allows visitors to listen to hear anti-apartheid activist music from across the globe.
The larger gallery will feature a cross-section of materials that highlight the work of youth activists in the lead up to, and after the ‘76 uprisings where viewers encounter original photographs, posters, maps and other ephemera that tell a rich and compelling history of anti-apartheid resistance.
The display in the Gitenstein Library will also include materials from the Apartheid Heritages archive, and will also include contributions by TCNJ librarians including lib guides and other research related materials to include from the TCNJ holdings, and items from the TCNJ archive.