At 8am on June 16 1976, a nineteen year-old Tsietsi Mashinini led students on a peaceful march in protest against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools around Soweto. Within hours of the march, the police and army opened fire on young unarmed school children, killing hundreds in the months that followed. After Tsietsi died in exile in 1990, his body was brought to Soweto and buried at Avalon Cemetery.