Table of Contents

Protests before 1976; 'Kroonstad was now aware': black consciousness and student demonstration 1972 - 1976; The YCW, Labour protest and government reforms 1977 - 1984; Student protest, Community mobilisation and the Town Council Politics 1985 - 1989; The unbanning of the ANC, Political violence and Civic politics 1990 - 1995.

About the Author

Tshepo Moloi is a researcher in the History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Reviews

I was born and raised in Kroonstad, a Free State town known more for its famous sons and daughters such as Gabriel Setiloane, Pallo Jordan, Ivy Matsepe, Mosioua Lekota and Antjie Krog. This important book tells us about the other heroes and heroines of the town who didn’t find the limelight, but fought a hard struggle for dignity, justice and freedom over generations. This lesser known part of my hometown’s history has cried out to be documented for a long time, and now it is done in an authoritative, engaging way.
— Max du Preez, South African author, columnist, documentary filmmaker and founding editor of Vrye Weekblad

Given that the most convulsive upheavals from the mid-1970s through the 1980s and 1990s took place in the main metropolitan areas, historians and social scientists have tended to ignore smaller towns. By examining Maokeng in Kroonstad, the author reveals that the pattern of urban black political protest and resistance in the latter half of the twentieth century is considerably more layered than an earlier historiography has suggested.
— Hilary Sapire, University of London