South African Students' Organisation
[5] In the case of NUSAS, the black students in question also disagreed politically with white liberals in the organisation, who at the time outnumbered those advocating for a more radical stance on apartheid.
[5][7] After another consultative meeting organised by UNB students in December 1968, SASO was officially launched in July 1969 at its inaugural conference, held at the Turfloop campus of the University of the North, where its constitution was ratified.
[1][5] In subsequent years, SASO evaded serious state repression, at least initially, and its membership grew on black campuses across South Africa,[2][8] from a base of fourteen branches (four in seminaries, and the largest at Turfloop) in June 1970.
[5]SASO's establishment coincided with the earliest stirrings of the Black Consciousness Movement, which was perhaps the most important anti-apartheid force inside South Africa for much of the 1970s, and with which it was strongly aligned.
[3] At least for its first half-decade, SASO – like the rest of the Black Consciousness movement – firmly eschewed class analysis in favour of a view of race as the central political divide.
[12] By July 1976, however, the SASO president himself, Diliza Mji, had begun to link apartheid to capitalist exploitation, imperialism, and class interests, reflecting a growing ideological debate within the Black Consciousness movement.
[8] SASO's constitution identified as one of the organisation's aims the imperative to "project at all times the Black Consciousness image culturally, socially and educationally".
[5] To this end, SASO organised "formation schools" on university campuses, aiming to provide forums in which students could apply Black Consciousness ideals to the consideration and debate of topical issues.
[5] Community outreach was an activity familiar to former UCM and NUSAS members, and within SASO was partly motivated by concern about black people who lived in poverty.
[2][5] Viewing Black Consciousness as "an attitude of mind, a way of life" more than as a tool for political activism,[5] SASO was initially ambivalent about the use of public protests and demonstrations.
It associated such demonstrations with NUSAS's liberal activism and – according to a motion adopted by the General Student Conference in 1970 – viewed them as "aimed at the white press and public" and as "deficient" because lacking "a strategic and continuous attempt to change the status quo".
The rallies aimed to demonstrate public support for the Mozambican liberation movement Frelimo, in the wake of the news that Portugal would grant Mozambique its independence the following year.
[9] In the aftermath of the arrests which followed the 1974 pro-Frelimo rallies, the South African government in January 1975 charged the so-called SASO Nine with violations of the Terrorism Act.
[14] Following a high-profile trial, all were found guilty of "encouraging and furthering feelings of hostility between the Black and White inhabitants of the Republic" and were sentenced to imprisonment, leaving SASO – and the BPC – effectively "leaderless".
