Volunteers pledge themselves to the Defiance Campaign

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.

The law created state-controlled tribal, regional and territorial authorities. It laid administrative foundations for the Bantustan system and excluded Africans from common citizenship.

While the state celebrated three centuries of white settlement, the ANC and SAIC held mass meetings and called for defiance of six discriminatory laws.

Multiracial groups deliberately violated curfews, pass laws and segregation regulations. More than 8,000 volunteers were arrested during the country's largest civil-disobedience campaign to that date.

Authorities arrested campaign leaders under the Suppression of Communism Act in an attempt to disrupt the expanding civil-disobedience movement.

Twenty campaign leaders were convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act and received suspended prison sentences. Repression intensified but the campaign greatly expanded ANC membership.

The government gained broad authority to declare states of emergency, detain people and rule by proclamation. The measure responded directly to mass resistance.

The apartheid state took control of African schooling and designed education to prepare Black children for subordinate labour. Communities, teachers and the ANC opposed the system.