Human Rights Day: Sharpeville Massacre United The World Against Apartheid, But Sa Sporting Isolation Took Too Long - Ask The All Blacks

Comment by Mike Greenaway

The international media coverage of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 was the first time South Africas reality was brought to a wider audience, but although England Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called for winds of change in South Africa, it was an eternity before the breeze became a tornado.

Governments around the world questioned their relationship with South Africa, and sport was a major area to come under the microscope.

To continue to engage with teams like the whites-only Springboks was to condone the apartheid government.

But there was a cumbersome lag between protests and the actual discontinuation of sporting contact. This was best illustrated by the New Zealand All Blacks ambiguous relationship with the Springboks.