Fifty years after schoolchildren took to the streets of Soweto in 1976 demanding dignity, equality and a voice in their future, young environmental lawyers say the promises of that struggle continue to be tested — not in classrooms but in courtrooms, mining towns and climate-hit communities.
For them, Youth Day is no longer only about political liberation. It is also about whether South Africa’s democracy has delivered environmental and economic justice to those carrying the burden of pollution, mining and climate change.
For Bokang Galogakoe, a candidate legal practitioner at the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), Youth Day is a reflection on progress and a reminder of unfinished work.
Youth Day is also a reminder, she says, that many structural injustices inherited from the past continue to shape young people’s lives.
She sees her work at CER as part of a longer continuum of youth activism rooted in constitutionalism and human rights advocacy.
“The youth of 1976 did not march so that we could be silent in the face of injustice. They marched so that future generations would have the courage to continue where they left off.”
For Galogakoe, the continuation takes place in courtrooms, community meetings and policy spaces, where environmental harm and climate change are increasingly being recognised as human rights issues that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable.
“Youth activism today is not a single story; it is many voices, many struggles and many fronts,” she says.
The sense of an incomplete transition is shared by fellow CER candidate legal practitioner Mosangoaneng Leteane. Youth Day, she says, is a reminder “of how far South Africa has come, while allowing us to honour the generational sacrifices that were made to overcome racial inequality”.
“Our freedom was secured by young people who refused to accept the status quo,” she says. But that freedom, she says, has not fully translated into socio-economic or environmental justice.
Coming from a mining-affected community has shaped how she understands environmental rights. “It has allowed me to understand how issues of land, health and sustainability directly affect the dignity and livelihoods of communities like mine; which is why I believe it is important to speak up if the status quo is unjust.”
Asked whether young South Africans have inherited the future envisioned in 1976, Leteane says the answer is not straightforward.
While political freedoms such as the right to vote and access to education represent real gains, they are not experienced equally.
“We have inherited important political freedoms such as the right to vote, to education — liberties that would not have been possible without the sacrifices of the youth of 1976. However, with a 45.5% unemployment rate among young people between the ages of 15 and 35, it is difficult to appreciate these gains.”
She describes the condition as “structural waithood”, where young people are formally free but economically constrained. “Youth experiences are marred by deep inequality, inadequate public services and increasing climate vulnerability. This is not the democracy the youth of 1976 envisioned.”
For both lawyers, environmental justice has become one of the defining tests of South Africa's democratic project. For Galogakoe, climate change cannot be separated from constitutional rights.
“The communities most vulnerable to climate impacts are often the same communities facing unemployment, poverty and inequality.”
In mining-affected and coal-dependent regions, she says, the pressures accumulate rather than exist in isolation.
A young person in these areas, she says, is navigating a compounded reality shaped by history, inequality and environmental harm.
Leteane similarly frames climate change as a lived socio-economic crisis rather than a distant environmental threat. In many cases, she says, communities are caught in an extractive trap, dependent on industries that simultaneously damage their health and environment.
When the industries decline, she adds, there is often no meaningful transition. “There is usually no repurposing, no jobs programme, no safety net large enough to catch these communities.”
Both lawyers point to climate litigation as one of the key arenas in which young people are asserting influence.
A landmark example is the Cancel Coal judgment, which recognised the importance of youth participation in environmental decision-making.
For Galogakoe, the ruling marks a meaningful shift in legal recognition. “It is a watershed intergenerational judgment that recognises the best interest of the child as a critical consideration in environmental assessments.”
It also affirms that young people must be included in decisions affecting their future. However, she cautions that legal recognition does not automatically translate into meaningful participation.
“A court victory is not the same as structural inclusion. The youth resorting to courts should not be the bar.”
While youth voices are increasingly present in environmental governance, she says, they often remain peripheral. “Youth voices still tend to enter these conversations late, as consultees rather than decision-makers.”
She says participation remains uneven, particularly in rural and mining-affected communities.
For both lawyers, South Africa’s defining challenges cannot be separated into distinct categories. Climate change, unemployment, inequality and poverty form a single interconnected system.
“The communities most vulnerable to climate impacts are often the same communities facing unemployment, poverty and inequality,” Galogakoe says.
Leteane describes this as a “painful loop” in which young people must navigate structural inequality while adapting to climate change. “You are being asked to carry a crisis you didn’t create, in an economy that was failing you before the climate emergency arrived.”
She says the reality is especially visible in coal-dependent regions such as Mpumalanga, where environmental harm and economic dependence are tightly intertwined.
Despite the hurdles, both lawyers say young people are increasingly organised, legally literate and active in shaping environmental governance.
“The current generation of young South Africans is more organised, more legally literate and more willing to confront power than perhaps any generation since 1976,” Galogakoe says.
Beyond litigation, young people are actively involved in organisations advancing education, climate justice and responses to social challenges across the country.
“That level of civic engagement is itself part of the inheritance, the culture of resistance and accountability that 1976 planted.”
Still, the full promise of that generation remains undelivered. “Poverty, unemployment and inequality remain South Africa’s defining challenges and too many young people are waiting for a future that the Constitution promised them 30 years ago.
“The gap between what was fought for and what currently exists is not small. For the youth bearing the weight of it, it is felt every single day.”
Leteane says youth activism is marked by its authenticity. “It is the courage to tell your story from wherever you are and using that truth to inspire new platforms for those who stand in their own stories.”
The young people of 1976 fought against a visible enemy because apartheid was legal and enforceable, Galogakoe says.
“Our generation, however, is confronting a crisis that does not announce itself. With climate change, it creeps slowly and unevenly into communities through acid mine drainage, poor air and water quality as well as airborne diseases.
“Activism in this context looks like translating complexity into lived reality, occupying legal and policy spaces not originally designed for young people and challenging the expectation that youth must wait their turn.”
Despite the challenges, youth activism remains intersective, innovative and just, Leteane says.