On March 21, 1960, at least 180 black Africans (there are allegations of up to 300 people) were injured and 69 killed when South African police forces opened fire on about 300 demonstrators, who were protesting traffic laws, in the town of Sharpeville, Near Vereeniging in the Transvaal.

At similar demonstrations at the Vanderbijlpark police station, another person was shot, and later that day in Langa, a town outside Cape Town, police charged and fired tear gas at the protesters who had gathered, shooting three and injuring several people. The Sharpeville massacre, as it became known, signaled the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and led to condemnation of the apartheid policies in South Africa.

On May 13, 1902, the treaty that ended the Anglo-Boer War was signed in Vereeniging, signifying a new era of cooperation between the English and the Afrikaans living in South Africa, and by 1910, the two African countries joined the Orange River Colony (Oranje Vrij Staat) and Transvaal (Zuid Afrikaansche Republick) to Cape Colony and Natal as the federation of South Africa, the oppression of black Africans became entrenched in the new union constitution (although it may not have been intentional) and the foundations of major apartheid were laid.

After World War II, the Nationalist Party (Reform or Net) came to power (with a slim majority, created through a coalition with the insignificant Afrikaner party) in 1948, its members disaffected with the previous government, the United Party, and in 1933, the The government's agreement with Britain worked during the war, and within one year the Mixed Marriages Act was drawn up out of several discriminatory laws that had been made to separate white South Africans from the black African masses, and by 1958, with the election of Hendrik Verwerrd, (South Africa) was Fully rooted in the apartheid philosophy.

There was opposition to the government's policies, and the African National Congress (ANC) was operating within the law against all forms of racial discrimination in South Africa. In 1956, it committed itself to a South Africa that "belongs to all" a peaceful demonstration in June of the same year, and agreed in which the African National Congress (and anti-apartheid groups) endorsed the Freedom Charter, and led to the arrest of 156 anti-apartheid leaders and a “treason trial” that continued until 1961.

By the late 1950s, some members of the ANCs became disillusioned with the "peaceful" response, this select group known as "Africans" defined a multi-ethnic future in South Africa, and Africans followed the philosophy that a resolutely racist nationalist feeling was needed to mobilize the masses, and they supported A strategy for collective action (boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and non-cooperation), and the Pan-African Congress (PAC) was formed in April 1959 AD, and Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was president.

The PAC and the ANC did not agree on policy. In 1959, the ANC planned a demonstration campaign against traffic laws to begin at the beginning of April 1960. The General Election Commission rushed ahead and announced a similar demonstration, to begin ten days earlier, effectively hijacking the ANC's campaign. African.

On March 16, 1960, Subokoy wrote to the Police Commissioner, Major General Radmeier, indicating that the PNC would undergo a five-day, nonviolent, disciplined and sustained protest campaign against the traffic laws, beginning on March 21, and in a press conference held On 18 March he also said: "I have appealed to the African people to ensure that this campaign is conducted in a spirit of absolute non-violence, and I am sure that they will heed my call. The other side desires it. We will provide them with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world how cruel they can be." They are out, and the PAC leadership was optimistic about some kind of physical response.