The Umbrella Tree Author:Rose Zwi 16 June 1976, Soweto - the date and place that gave a name to an era. — On that morning, 20,000 schoolchildren marched in peaceful protest against a decree that Afrikaans, regarded by blacks as the language of the oppressor, be used for instruction in black schools. This Revolt of the Children was the spark that set off the conflagration... more » in black townships throughout the country, already seething on discontent over the misery and degradation imposed on their lives by Apartheid.
The Umbrella Tree is the story of both black and white resistance to Apartheid and the point at which they meet, briefly, in the shade of an umbrella tree in a rural "homeland" in South Africa« less