1960 - Forced Removals

Conditions in the homelands continued to deteriorate, primarily because they had to accommodate vast numbers of people with minimal resources. Many people found their way to the towns, but the government, attempting to reverse this flood, strengthened the pass laws by making it illegal for Blacks to be in a town for more than 72 hours at a time without a job in a white home or business. 

The government conducted a particularly brutal series of forced removals from the 1960s to the early ’80s, during which more than 3.5 million Blacks were taken from towns and white rural areas (including lands they had occupied for generations) and dumped into the homelands, sometimes in the middle of winter and without any facilities.