BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENT OF THE 1970s
The emergence of the Black Consciousness movement that swept across the country in the
1970s can best be explained in the context of the events from 1960 onwards. After the
Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the National Party (NP) government, which was formed in
1947, intensified its repression to curb widespread civil unrest. It did this by passing harsher
laws, extending its use of torture, imprisonment and detentions without trial. By the late
1960s, the government had jailed, banned or exiled the majority of the Liberation
Movement‟s leaders.Arrests and harassment of leaders were to be intensified leading to a
state of political apathy in South Africa. Experiences of Steve Biko and others within white
led organisations like NUSAS and the University Christian Movement. Among many issues
that fueled discontent among black members of NUSAS was its apparent condonation of the
status quo: Separate accommodation was arranged for students from different racial groups
during the NUSAS conference of 1967 in Grahamstown and that of UCM at Stutterheim in
1968. Bantustans separated black people from the rest of the country.
In response to this, an intensified wave of tyranny, and a new set of organisations emerged.
These organisations filled the vacuum created by the government‟ suppression of the
African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) after the
Sharpeville massacre in 1960.
The ideology of Black Consciousness, which informed Biko and his colleagues‟ approach,
represented a deeper strand of Africanism within African nationalism. Biko believed that the
Black people had been living in psychological chains, believing themselves to be inferior to
the white people. Black Consciousness has, therefore, been defined by Biko as “the
realisation by the Black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause
of their oppression – the blackness of their skin and to operate as a group in order to rid
themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude”
The phrase “non-white” defined Blacks in negative terms. The BCM adopted the word
‘black’ to mean all the people affected by Apartheid. It united the black people and was a
direct challenge to the government. Ideas about Black unity and emancipation are deeply
rooted in the struggle Biko launched against apartheid since the 1960s. Initially the BCM had
the support of the government as it saw the movement as a call for separatism which aligned
with their ideologies but later realised both the rhetoric and philosophy of Black
Consciousness contradicted the fundamental principles of apartheid. This was because,
apartheid was designed not only to separate Whites from Blacks but also to foster black
narrow-mindedness by segregating Blacks into ethnic and linguistic groups. The government
condemned every person or organisation associated with the BCM and when Steve biko
was rearrested in 1977, he later died in police custody. The ideas he stood for survived his
death and this was true to his statement ‘it is better to die for an idea that will live than to
live for an idea that will die’ From the beginning of Biko‟s political life until his death, he
remains one of the indisputable icons of the Black struggle against apartheid. Defining Black
Consciousness is no mean task.
The formation of SASO and the Black People's Convention Black came as a result of
university students who had tried for many years to make progress through the multiracial
and liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Several young liberal white
The emergence of the Black Consciousness movement that swept across the country in the
1970s can best be explained in the context of the events from 1960 onwards. After the
Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the National Party (NP) government, which was formed in
1947, intensified its repression to curb widespread civil unrest. It did this by passing harsher
laws, extending its use of torture, imprisonment and detentions without trial. By the late
1960s, the government had jailed, banned or exiled the majority of the Liberation
Movement‟s leaders.Arrests and harassment of leaders were to be intensified leading to a
state of political apathy in South Africa. Experiences of Steve Biko and others within white
led organisations like NUSAS and the University Christian Movement. Among many issues
that fueled discontent among black members of NUSAS was its apparent condonation of the
status quo: Separate accommodation was arranged for students from different racial groups
during the NUSAS conference of 1967 in Grahamstown and that of UCM at Stutterheim in
1968. Bantustans separated black people from the rest of the country.
In response to this, an intensified wave of tyranny, and a new set of organisations emerged.
These organisations filled the vacuum created by the government‟ suppression of the
African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) after the
Sharpeville massacre in 1960.
The ideology of Black Consciousness, which informed Biko and his colleagues‟ approach,
represented a deeper strand of Africanism within African nationalism. Biko believed that the
Black people had been living in psychological chains, believing themselves to be inferior to
the white people. Black Consciousness has, therefore, been defined by Biko as “the
realisation by the Black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause
of their oppression – the blackness of their skin and to operate as a group in order to rid
themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude”
The phrase “non-white” defined Blacks in negative terms. The BCM adopted the word
‘black’ to mean all the people affected by Apartheid. It united the black people and was a
direct challenge to the government. Ideas about Black unity and emancipation are deeply
rooted in the struggle Biko launched against apartheid since the 1960s. Initially the BCM had
the support of the government as it saw the movement as a call for separatism which aligned
with their ideologies but later realised both the rhetoric and philosophy of Black
Consciousness contradicted the fundamental principles of apartheid. This was because,
apartheid was designed not only to separate Whites from Blacks but also to foster black
narrow-mindedness by segregating Blacks into ethnic and linguistic groups. The government
condemned every person or organisation associated with the BCM and when Steve biko
was rearrested in 1977, he later died in police custody. The ideas he stood for survived his
death and this was true to his statement ‘it is better to die for an idea that will live than to
live for an idea that will die’ From the beginning of Biko‟s political life until his death, he
remains one of the indisputable icons of the Black struggle against apartheid. Defining Black
Consciousness is no mean task.
The formation of SASO and the Black People's Convention Black came as a result of
university students who had tried for many years to make progress through the multiracial
and liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Several young liberal white
