In 1976, students in Soweto protested against the apartheid government's imposition of Afrikaans in Black schools. Police violence against children shocked the world and intensified resistance to apartheid. The uprising revealed language policy itself as a battlefield of dignity and domination.

Soweto energised South African protest poetry, performance, and theatre. Poets such as Mongane Wally Serote, Sipho Sepamla, and later anti-apartheid writers used urgent public language to mourn the dead, accuse the state, and dignify township resistance.