SHARPEVILLE, South Africa – Paulina Mathinye gestures with anguish at the rows of garbage-strewn graves, overrun with weeds, in the cemetery where her father is buried.

“Look at that, where they sleep,” she says of the dozens of Black protesters buried here, all of whom were killed when police opened fire on March 21, 1960 in what became one of the bloodiest days in apartheid history.

“Why are they dirty? It’s a disgrace,” says the 71-year-old grandmother, who wears a floral dress and a smart sunhat.

The cemetery, like much else in this visibly poor township about an hour’s drive from Johannesburg, has been left to decay. But Mathinye notes that for one day a year at least, when South Africa’s political elite descend to commemorate the massacre, the graveyard is spotless. The anniversary is a public holiday known as Human Rights Day.

“I’m still angry. My anger comes out because that’s the day my father was shot,” says Mathinye, who was just five years old at the time.

She says her father’s part in what became a turning point in the struggle against apartheid has not been sufficiently recognized by the current democratic government.

And she says she wants justice – however delayed.

Paulina Mathinye stands at her father’s graveside at a cemetery in Sharpeville, South Africa, on 23 September, 2026.

Kate Bartlett/NPR

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Kate Bartlett/NPR

That’s why she’s signed up to take part in a potential class action lawsuit 66 years later, along with Sharpeville survivors and the families of Sharpeville victims.

At least 69 people were shot by police that day. They had been demonstrating against the country’s pass laws – which restricted black people’s movements and where they could live and work.

While it’s unclear if any perpetrators are still alive, those taking part in the case hope it could lead to reparations.

But first, the group’s lawyers must challenge an apartheid-era law that continues to block their efforts to seek legal redress. The law remains in force decades after apartheid ended and a Black-majority government took power.

In September they filed an application in the Gauteng High Court challenging the continued existence of the Indemnity Act 61 of 1961. If the court finds the law unconstitutional, and also certifies a class action for survivors and dependants of those killed, then claims for individual damages could follow.