On March 21, 1960, sixty-nine people were killed and 180 were wounded after police opened fire at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid “pass laws.” A few years later in 1966, March 21st was proclaimed the “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN).
A long road ahead
The United Nations has made the theme for March 21, 2019: Mitigating and countering rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies.