The Sharpeville massacre followed a new campaign against South Africa’s pass laws. The Pan-African Congress, led by Robert Sobukwe, had recently broken away from the older African National Congress, and rivalry between the two organisations hindered coordination. At Sharpeville, however, the immediate issue was clear: demonstrators gathered to hand in their passes and challenge the legal machinery controlling African movement.

On 21 March 1960, a large crowd assembled around the Sharpeville police station. The demonstrators were unarmed, and the account describes them as responding to the Pan-African Congress call to surrender their passes. Police opened fire, killing sixty-nine people. The event rapidly became an international political crisis because the violence exposed the coercive foundations of pass-law enforcement.

The consequences extended far beyond Sharpeville. A week later, nearly 30,000 Africans marched unarmed into Cape Town to demonstrate against the pass laws. The government declared a state of emergency and banned both major African congress organisations. The shootings therefore closed the period in which mass resistance had been pursued chiefly through peaceful defiance and public arrest.