The years 1984–86 marked the height of popular insurrection against apartheid. Following the impressive and successful Vaal stayaway in November 1984, townships across the country burst into open rebellion against apartheid. The state's attempt to impose conservative Black Local Authorities (BLAs) on black townships, which were armed with only a limited development programme and very little political clout, failed dismally as people's demands for full citizenship and a decent life for all South Africans grew louder. By the beginning of 1986 most BLA councillors had been forced to resign under the mounting pressure of community derision and rejection. Very few of these local authorities were able to maintain anything more than a semblance of respectability and authority. Bereft of any meaningful support, they were mostly unable to function properly. The ignominious collapse of BLAs inaugurated a period of ‘ungovernability’ or people's power in the townships, characterised by the inability of the apartheid state to impose its form of governance on the black population. What had been perceived by the National Party as a major piece of reform was rejected as useless by the black majority.

The township uprising was a major turning point in the struggle for freedom, as it arguably marked the beginning of the end of apartheid. The main actors in this political drama were ordinary township residents who rose in their hundreds of thousands to demand a life free from oppression and exploitation. Numerous local organisations – civic associations, youth and student organisations, trade unions and churches – combined to create powerful national movements for the first time since the dark days of the 1960s. The United Democratic Front (UDF) became the principal umbrella body under which most of these organisations were combined. Equally important was the emerging independent trade union movement, which united mainly under the banner of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu) in the early 1980s and from 1985 under the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). Revolutions are characterised by the involvement of the masses in shaping their own destiny and during this period countless numbers of women and men, old and young, in urban and rural areas, made their mark on the country's future.