June 16, 1976 is one of the most photographed moments in South African history. When the photojournalist Sam Nzima took the picture of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson dying in the arms of Mbuyisa Makhubu, he could not have known that, with that click of the camera, he would be marking a historical turning point. This picture has travelled all over the world and has become the iconic image of the June 16, 1976 student revolt. The picture said it all, so to speak. But this is not the only visual story to be told.

This photographic essay is made up of moments captured by the police photographers and embedded reporters. The essay revisits June 16, 1976 through their lenses. It looks at what they saw and what they shot. The essay is made up of 16 images from Alexandra Township in Johannesburg. The police photographer pointing his camera at the children, just like the policeman pointing a gun, is a missing voice in the historiography of the June 16 student revolt. These unnamed photographers came with the police to document the “riots”. The photographers’ lenses were there to pick up evidence of “rioting” and destruction. The photographs used in this essay were compiled as part of the Cillie Commission, which was tasked to investigate the causes and consequences of the June 16 uprising for the government of the day. Although the photo essay is an open-ended conversation made up of a subjective selection of images, (pictures that moved me) it is also guided by two impulses: first, to show that June 16 started in Soweto but it ignited fires in other parts of the country, thus the focus on Alexandra, and second, because the pictures are shot from the sky, or from behind the police line, they reveal something disturbing about the confrontation between the white riot policeman and the African child, both caught in a fiery historical moment.