‘Arming Black Consciousness’: The Formation of the Bokwe Group/Azanian Peoples’ Liberation Front, April 1972–September 1976

The Azanian Peoples’ Liberation Front (APLF) was a little-known Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) organisation that formed in the mid 1970s as a complement to the rising tide of non-violent internal activism against apartheid oppression in South Africa. Unlike other Black Consciousness (BC) organisations at the time, the APLF embraced armed struggle and acquired training in exile. This turn to armed struggle was motivated by the inability of the banned nationalist movements, the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), to achieve their stated objectives of bringing down apartheid through force of arms. While the APLF disbanded in July/August 1976 without having fully established itself as an armed wing of the BCM, and having conducting no armed operations as far as we know, this article argues that it succeeded as a political project in two ways. Firstly, the attempt to form an armed wing in exile expanded the ways the growing BCM could mobilise against the repression of the apartheid state. With the older liberation movements beleaguered, the APLF temporarily provided an alternative for activists seeking ways to overthrow apartheid beyond non-violent protest and consciousness-raising projects. Secondly, the process of building global support for the APLF enhanced the radical internationalist politics and presence of BC outside South Africa’s borders. Unearthing this hidden topography of struggle demonstrates the dogged determination of black South Africans to fight for freedom independent of the leadership of the ANC/Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) or PAC/Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA). Indeed, for a brief time, the APLF offered a viable alternative for how the struggle against apartheid would or should be fought and who would or should lead it.