The novel takes place during apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid refers to the government’s system of institutionalized racial segregation that gave the white minority economic, social, and political power and stripped the rights of the non-white majority throughout South Africa. This system was officially in place from 1948 through the early 1990s. The word apartheid literally means “apart-hood” in the Afrikaans language, which developed in the Republic of South Africa and derived from 17th-century Dutch. The events in Hum If You Don’t Know the Words begin in June 1976, days before the Soweto student protests in which white police killed hundreds of kids and injured thousands more who were peacefully protesting the school curriculum imposed by the Afrikaner government that required students to learn in both English and Afrikaans.

At the time of the protest, the country was nearly 30 years into the system of apartheid, and tensions were continuing to rise. The white government censored the media and banned the circulation of certain literature and images. The mining system in South Africa reflected the country’s labor conditions. Black men were rarely allowed to leave the mining towns, weren’t monitored for common mining diseases, and weren’t paid a living wage. White men also worked in the profitable mining industry, many overseeing Black workers.