Black Consciousness Movement

Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), South African movement founded in the late 1960s by a group of black students. Its objectives were to unite all black victims of white racism, to ensure that blacks stopped depending on white organizations working for their benefit, and eventually, to form an independent black state. One of the movement's founders was Stephen Biko, who was then a medical student. In 1968 students in the BCM formed the all-black South African Students Organization (SASO) as a separate group from the white-controlled National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). The BCM contributed to the establishment of the nationwide Black People's Convention in 1972. The aim of the convention was to unite blacks, Coloureds (those of mixed racial descent), and Asians against the oppression of the white minority government of South Africa.

At first, associating the aims of the movement with the racial separatism of the apartheid system, the government encouraged it, and a network of Black Consciousness social and cultural organizations was established. The appeal of Black Consciousness soon came to be seen as a threat by the government, however. The movement's influence played a part in the 1976 mass protest of school children against the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The uprisings in the black township of Soweto, near Johannesburg, which began in 1976 and had resulted in at least 575 deaths by February 1977, were in part a result of the Black Consciousness Movement. In October 1977, 18 Black Consciousness organizations including SASO, were banned and 50 of their leaders detained. The arrest of Stephen Biko in August 1977 and his death while in custody due to maltreatment by the police caused an international outcry. In the immediate aftermath of the Soweto riots many young people escaped across South Africa's borders to join the armed wings of the liberation movements.