The ANC adopts the Programme of Action

About 60,000 to 76,000 Black miners struck for higher wages and better conditions. Police and troops violently suppressed the week-long action, killing and injuring workers.

After India raised the treatment of people of Indian origin, the UN General Assembly declared that relations between the two countries should conform to international obligations and the UN Charter.

Alfred Xuma, Yusuf Dadoo and Monty Naicker signed a declaration of cooperation, committing their organizations to joint struggle for full democratic rights.

The National Party came to power on an apartheid platform despite receiving fewer votes overall than its opponents. The Black majority had no national vote.

Violence between African and Indian residents erupted amid poverty, racial segregation and labour competition. More than 140 people died, exposing divisions produced and manipulated by colonial rule.

The ANC, Communist Party and trade unions called workers to stay home for political rights and against repression. Police killed at least eighteen people in clashes on the Witwatersrand.

Facing the Suppression of Communism Act, the CPSA dissolved publicly. Members later reorganized underground as the South African Communist Party.

The ANC and allied organizations organized a stay-at-home and day of mourning following the May Day killings and in protest against apartheid laws.

The act authorized compulsory residential and business segregation and became a major legal instrument for mass forced removals from multiracial neighbourhoods.

Every resident was assigned a racial classification. These classifications determined residence, schooling, employment, political rights and everyday movement under apartheid.