Despite the crackdown by the South African government on 19 October, unrest has continued since then throughout South Africa.
School boycotts by students and teachers refusing to continue under the Bantu Education system continued in most urban centres and in several of the bantustans. Early in November the Financial Mail reported that in Venda all 357 schools were shut and over 100,000 students boycotting classes. Attendances at schools in the Ciskei apparently had risen to about 60%. In Port Elizabeth all 39,000 primary and secondary school students were boycotting classes, Uitenhage had an almost total boycott of higher primary and secondary schools, and Kingwilliamstown schools had an attendance of only 7%. Attendance at Cradock and Grahamstown schools (also in the Eastern Cape) was officially described as "very poor". In Bophuthatswana and Qwa Qwa there were also reports of schools boycotts. However, in the Cape Peninsula attendance was reported to be between 80-90%. In Pietersburg, five secondary schools were closed. All East Rand post-primary schools were being boycotted. At the University of the North, near Pietersburg, over a third of the student body was absent after a mass walk-out over student rights. In Pretoria pupils were boycotting 33 primary and secondary schools. In Soweto the schools strike by 27,000 secondary schools was continuing and spreading to school pupils in the higher primaries.
The school boycotts have continued since then, and exams were boycotted countrywide. In December it was reported that 500 teachers in Soweto had now resigned their posts.
Demonstrations and shootings continued right through into the Christmas and New Year period. The Eastern Cape and Port Elizabeth areas saw a particularly large number of demonstrations, and intense police repression. In Soweto, the Soweto Action Committee called on residents in the townships to again observe the Christmas period (from 19 December to 1 January) as a time of mourning. In a statement the committee said: "You are asked to refrain from participating in any form of merry-making and instead to use this period in silence and meditation. This is a time of rededication to the struggle." They also made a commitment to work for the "restoration and preservation of our land for which our ancentors and our children have paid the price of death, exile and imprisonment."
3/4.10.77: Schoolchildren in the Eastern and Northern Transvaal set alight and stoned numerous buildings and vehicles. Police arrested 184 youths in the two areas on 4.10.77.
8.10.77: 1000 students and parents attended the funeral of Joel Zulu near Pretoria, the high school student who died after allegedly receiving stab wounds during a fight with a policeman.
15.10.77: The death toll in townships around Port Elizabeth rose to six when a man was shot dead by police during continuing unrest when police vehicles were stoned in New Brighton township. 13 people were reported wounded.
16.10.77: Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral in Atteridgeville near Pretoria of Patrick Moloto (14), a primary school pupil, who was allegedly shot dead the previous weekend by a white official of BAAB.
21.10.77: Police arrested 54 African high school students from Sharpeville, near Vereeniging, following demonstrations by students from a secondary school and two lower primary schools.
21.10.77: Police arrested 97 Indian teachers, school students and adults allegedly holding an illegal gathering to protest against the 19 October clampdown, in Lenasia, outside Johannesburg.
23.10.77: 30 young people were arrested from among 1500 mourners at the funeral of an 18-year-old student, Chumani Vuso at Zwelitshe near Kingwilliamstown. He was the third student to be shot in the Ciskei in recent weeks. Police fired teargas at buses when mourners were inside. A 17-year-old girl was shot in the leg. Police baton-charged mourners when they refused to disperse at the Vuso home after the funeral. Police chased youths into the Vuso house and beat them with batons. The police broke down doors to get in.
24.10.77: Eighteen vehicles of the Venda Bantustan government set alight by students at Sibasa. The police said there had also been an attempt to set fire to the offices of the superintendent of Seshego, the Lebowa legislative capital at the weekend. It was also reported that students at four senior secondary schools refused to write examinations.
25.10.77: Riot police baton charged a crowd of 600 Africans outside a special court in Port Elizabeth hearing cases of unrest. Dogs were also used.
Students at Phohung Secondary School in Qwa Qwa stoned the Bantustan's Minister of Justice, their principal and a school inspector. Boycotts were continuing at other schools in the area.
26.10.77: Hundreds of students refused to write examinations at Malakuta School in the Lebowa bantustan. Also at Garankua in the Hamanskraal area, 1000 pupils at Maltso Mosepi High School refused to write examinations.
27.10.77: A demonstration of school pupils boycotting classes from Batho village near Bloemfontein was broken up by police using batons and dogs. Fourteen students were arrested. The student had marched singing through the village carrying placards such as "Away with Bantu Education". They reportedly later set fire to two school buildings.
27.10.77: 7 young people arrested in Wattville near Benoni, after reported stoning-throwing incidents.
28/29.10.77: Police cars were stoned and riot police opened fire with birdshot on demonstrators during continuing disturbances in New Brighton, near Port Elizabeth. Four people were arrested after police vehicles and buses were stoned in Bochabela township outside Bloemfontein. A police chief confirmed that "a very large number of arrests" had been made during the past week. "We have arrested intimidators, rioters, arsonists and stonethrowers right around the country," he said
29.10.77: Damage of about R6000 was caused to offices of the Bantu Administration board at Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape, after it was set alight.
31.10.77: Students refused to attend classes and sit examinations in incidents reported from Pretoria, Cape Town and Queenstown.
1.11.77: Police arrested 21 people during reported scenes of clashes between school boycotters and non-boycotters in Soweto.
In East London it was reported that R6,000 damage was caused to school buildings after a secondary school in Keiskamashoek was set alight.
1/2.11.77: Several cases of arson reported in Durban African townships. The most serious case was at Lamontville High School where two classrooms and the principal's office were set alight.
2.11.77: 63 people were arrested after disturbances in townships around Bloemfontein.
4.11.77: Riot police arrested 80 students at Fort Beaufort, Eastern Province, who were holding a gathering in the veld. A police chief said police were investigating a possible charge of conspiracy to commit public violence.
10.11.77: Police opened fire with birdshot in a township near Cradock when about 50 stoning-youths attacked a police patrol and caused extensive damage to police vehicles.
10.11.77: Police arrested 626 in Atteridgeville/Saulsville townships, near Pretoria, in a 6-hour opertion. Police threw a cordon around the township and the operation was controlled from a helicopter. Police said 410 of the people were arrested for passbook offences, and 198 were schoolchildren picked up to "see if they were in need of care". It was reported that the examination boycott in protest against Bantu Education continued in Atteridgeville/Saulsville.
13.11.77: Police opened fire on Africans who were reportedly stoning vehicles near the D.F. Malan Airport near Cape Town. One man was reported injured.
In Durban police were called to Chesterville Secondary School when students stoned the building after refusing to write examinations. In Cradock (E. Cape) police opened fire on a crowd which had reportedly set fire to three schools after the funeral of a youth shot by the police.
15.11.77: Six Africans were injured when police fired into a crowd of about 1,000 Africans in Cape Town's Langa township. The police started shooting after angry crowds gathered when BAAB officials on a pass raid started to detain people in the township. A policeman was also injured by flying rock.
16.11.77: An undisclosed number of Africans were arrested near Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape after they had put roadblocks on the national road and reportedly stoned cars.
20.11.77: Four Africans were wounded and four others arrested after police opened fire on groups stoning police cars in two townships near Port Elizabeth.
27.11.77: Police opened fire on crowds, wounding at least two people, after 3,000 people attended the funeral in Kagiso of Bonaventura Sipho Malaza, who died under security law detention.
4.12.77: Police arrested 5 high school students after the funeral of a fellow student in Randfontein.
14.12.77: Solomon Koalane, a 13-year-old schoolboy, was shot dead by riot police in Soweto. They claimed they thought he was a car thief.
16.12.77: More than 2,000 people attended the national Day of Prayer at Regina Mundi Cathedral in Soweto at which a pledge of unity was made by the Soweto Action Committee.
19.12.77: Soweto leaders urged that a period of mourning for those "dead, detained or exiled" should be observed by Soweto residents over the Christmas period - from 19 December to 1 January. The Soweto Action Committee said residents should dress in black and refrain from merry-making. Shebeens were also urged by the committee to stop operating over the period. The call was first made at the Day of Prayer service on 16.12.77.
21.12.77: Police shot into crowds of people in African townships near Port Elizabeth, killing one man and wounding at least 3 others. Police said that they shot because the crowds were stoning buses.
26.12.77: Police shot and wounded three black people in Kwazakele township near Port Elizabeth where crowds were reported to be trying to set fire to a beerhall. Several people were also arrested.
Police also fired teargas to disperse a crowd which gathered after the burial in New Brighton township (Port Elizabeth) of Mr. Mzudosi Nobhadula, who died in prison while awaiting trial on perjury charges. Later it was reported that a black pop group manager, Mthuthuzeli Heshu (28), had died after being shot during the demonstrations in New Brighton.
