1976 picture hector pietersen killed girlfriend

This calm encounter on a spring morning in Sandton, Johannesburg, belies a man who forged his career amid fury.

Hector pieterson family

He cheated death at the hands of police to capture the Soweto school uprising, surely, one of the saddest stories ever told in Africa. He smuggled the film out in his sock and the picture hit the front pages of the world. The picture changed the political landscape of South Africa; it made a fortune for the news agencies of the world, but he got nothing from it for 22 years.

The iconic image has been on everything from billboards to T-shirts. Harassment from police forced Nzima to become a small bottle store owner in the small village Lilydale, in Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga. It took him 22 years of struggle to get his copyright back. We found the students busy writing placards opposing new Bantu education laws.

When the march reached Morris Isaacson High, a student leader Tsietsi Mashinini addressed students from the top of a tree saying the march was to be a peaceful, says Nzima. Shortly after, armed police arrived in armoured vehicles and instructed all to disperse. Nzima says the singing agitated a police commander who instructed his officers to open fire.