[10] The brutal suppression of the 1976 Soweto uprising radicalised a generation of black activists and greatly bolstered the strength of the ANC's guerrilla force, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

[4] Simultaneously, inter-factional rivalry between the ANC, the PAC and the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), a third militant force, escalated into sectarian violence as the three groups fought for influence.

[15] Although its creation predated apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) became the primary force in opposition to the government after its moderate leadership was superseded by the organisation's more radical Youth League (ANCYL) in 1949.

Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme that combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with Marxism.

Sisulu, Mandela, Albert Luthuli, other famous ANC members, Indian Congress, and trade union chiefs' activities were all proscribed under the Suppression of Communism Act.

[41] The resurgent tide of armed revolutions in many developing nations and European colonial territories during the early 1960s gave ANC and PAC leaders the idea that nonviolent civil disobedience should be complemented by acts of insurrection and sabotage.

A hierarchical network of covert ANC cells was created for underground operations, military aid solicited from sympathetic African states and the Soviet Union, and a guerrilla training camp established in Tanganyika.

By the end of 1962 the ANC established an MK high command consisting of Mandela, Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, and prominent South African Communist Party (SACP) activist Joe Slovo.

[43] The SACP was also able to secure promises of military aid from the Soviet Union for the fledgling guerrilla army, and purchased Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, just outside Johannesburg, to serve as MK's headquarters.

[42] A popular uprising would compensate for the MK's weaknesses as it offered a way to defeat the National Party politically without having to engage in a direct military confrontation which the guerrillas would have no hope of winning.

[46] On 16 December 1961, MK operatives bombed a number of public facilities in several major South African cities, namely Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

[41] Mandela began planning for MK members to be given military training outside South Africa and slipped past authorities as he himself moved in and out of the country, earning him the moniker "The Black Pimpernel".

[clarification needed] A few days after that statement, he send two women PAC couriers, Cynthia Lichaba and Thabisa Lethala, to post letters in Ladybrand, a South African town near Lesotho.

[64][63] Prior to the 1960s, the NP government managed to quell much of the anti-apartheid opposition within South Africa by outlawing movements like the ANC and PAC, and driving their leaders into exile or captivity.

The BPC originally attempted to unite charitable associations like the Education and Cultural Advancement of African People of South Africa before expanding into a political administration with Biko as its honorary president.

After the carnage in Soweto the ANC's Nelson Mandela grudgingly concurred that bloodshed was the only means left to convince the NP to accede to commands for an end to its apartheid policy.

Black Consciousness in South Africa adopted a drastic theory, much like socialism, as the liberation movement progressed to challenging class divisions and shifting from an ethnic stress to focusing more on non-racialism.

Although the organisation was meant to be non-racial and anti-government, it was primarily made up of white English students from customarily broad-minded universities such as those in Natal, Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Grahamstown.

In January, 2,000 workers of the Coronation Brick and Tile Company went on strike for a pay raise (from under R10 to R20 a week), incorporating Mahatma Gandhi's views of civil resistance into their rebellions.

With their thousands of members, the trade unions had great strength in numbers, which they used to their advantage to campaign for the rights of black workers and to force the government to make changes to its apartheid policies.

The newly formed trade-union governing body, committed to improved working conditions and the fight against apartheid, organised a nationwide strike the following year, and a new State of Emergency was declared.

Beyers Naudé left the pro-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church and founded the Christian Institute of Southern Africa with other theologians, including Albert Geyser, Ben Marais and John de Gruchy.

After assisting in the 1948 general election, Schwarz, Uys Krige, Sailor Malan, and others formed the Torch Commando, an ex-soldiers' movement to protest against the disenfranchisement of the coloured people in South Africa.

Helen Zille, a white anti-apartheid activist, exposed a police cover-up regarding the death of Black Consciousness founder Steve Biko as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail.

Covert resistance was expressed by banned organisations like the largely white South African Communist Party, whose leader Joe Slovo was also Chief of Staff of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

[75] In addition to the well-known high profile Jewish anti-apartheid personalities, there were very many ordinary Jews who expressed their revulsion of apartheid in diverse ways and contributed to its eventual downfall.

Johannesburg's Oxford Synagogue and Cape Town's Temple Israel established nurseries, medical clinics and adult education programs in the townships and provided legal aid for victims of apartheid laws.

[76] In 1980, South Africa's National Congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies passed a resolution urging "all concerned [people] and, in particular, members of our community to cooperate in securing the immediate amelioration and ultimate removal of all unjust discriminatory laws and practices based on race, creed, or colour".

While female activists fought along men and participated to demonstrations and guerrilla movements, FSAW and ANCWL also acted independently and organised bus boycotts and campaigns against restrictive passes in Pretoria and Sharpeville.

In 1955, in a document drafted in preparation for the Congress of People,[85] the FSAW made more demands, including free education for children, proper housing facilities and good working conditions, such as the abolition of child labour and a minimum wage.