Women's groups

• Black women could make an independent living through brewing beer and selling it in shebeens, but this was banned by the National Party, who built official beer halls.
• In Cato Manor, near Durban in 1959, women became so annoyed by the police harassment of their shebeens that they attacked and burnt down 2 official beer halls. The next day they were violently attacked by the police.
• The Black Sash, founded in 1955, was an organisation of mostly middle-class white women who worked to help black women tackle pass laws and other apartheid restrictions.
• In January 1957, after a one penny fare increase was announced by the Public Utility Transportation Company, which transported some 25,000 Africans each day from the townships of Alexandra, Sophiatown and Lady Shelburne, Africans began a bus boycott by walking up to nine miles each way. Within three weeks, the 25,000 Africans from those towns had been joined in sympathy by 20,000 other Africans. The boycott was organised mainly by women and was led by a woman.
• Crossroads also known as "squatter camps" in the Cape Town area in 1977 were being demolished by the government- 20,000 residents were to be sent to Transkei. 200 women demonstrated at the Bantu Affairs Administrations office that would later become 5,000 in future protests. 800 people were arrested and one died. The government announced it would not force residents to leave.