During the negotiations to end apartheid in the early 1990s, the organization committed acts of terror and violence against black South Africans.

[11] On 7 July 1973, Eugène Terre'Blanche, a former police officer, called a meeting of several men in Heidelberg, Gauteng, in the then-Transvaal Province of South Africa.

He was disillusioned by what he thought were Prime Minister B. J. Vorster's "liberal views" of racial issues in the White minority country, after a period in which Black majorities had ascended to power in many former colonies.

They opposed the reform of apartheid laws during the 1980s, harassing liberal politicians and holding large (and often quite rowdy) political rallies.

The group operated relatively unhindered until 1986, when white South African Police (SAP) officers took the unprecedented step of using lachrymatory agent or tear gas against the AWB when they disrupted a National Party rally.

[7] In the Nick Broomfield documentary film, His Big White Self (2006), he claimed the organisation reached a peak of half a million supporters in its heyday.

[13] During the Battle of Ventersdorp in August 1991, the AWB confronted police in front of the town hall where State President F. W. de Klerk was speaking, and "a number of people were killed or injured" in the conflict.

The invaders then took over the main conference hall, threatening delegates and painting slogans on the walls, but left again after a short period.

In July 1989, Cornelius Lottering, a member of a breakaway AWB group Orde van die Dood (Order of Death), attempted to assassinate Allan by placing a bomb outside her Sandton apartment.

[23] Between 24 and 27 April 1994, AWB members committed a series of four bombings in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Germiston in an attempt to disrupt the multi-racial elections.

[27][28] In 1994, before the advent of majority rule, the AWB gained international notoriety in its attempt to defend the dictatorial government of Lucas Mangope in the homeland of Bophuthatswana.

Nearby photojournalists and television news crews recorded the incident, which proved to be a public relations disaster for the AWB, demoralising its White members.

[30] On 24 December 1996, members of the AWB planted two explosive devices at a Shoprite supermarket in Worcester, Western Cape, killing four civilians and wounding 60 more approximately.

Several posters made reference to the Bok van Blerk song "De la Rey", an Afrikaans hit record about the Boer General as well as to South Africa's former Coat of Arms.

[37] Plans include a demand for land that they claim is legally theirs in terms of the Sand River Convention of 1852 and other historical treaties, through the International Court of Justice in The Hague if necessary, and if that failed, taking up arms.

Several members of a fictionalised AWB are important characters in Harry Turtledove's American Civil War alternate history novel The Guns of the South (1992).

[46] The AWB also features prominently in Larry Bond's novel of a Cold War-era civil war/international conflict in South Africa, Vortex (1991).