The Public Safety Act expands emergency powers

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

Thousands attended the Day of the Volunteers shortly before civil disobedience began. Participants committed themselves to disciplined, nonviolent defiance of apartheid 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 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.

Women from different racial and political organizations formed FEDSAW and adopted a Women's Charter demanding political, economic and social equality.

Armed police supervised the removal of families from the multiracial Johannesburg neighbourhood to racially designated areas. Homes were demolished under the Group Areas Act.

SACTU united nonracial unions and linked workplace struggles with the wider Congress Alliance campaign against apartheid.

Nearly 3,000 delegates and observers gathered to debate demands collected from communities across South Africa for a democratic and nonracial future.