In March 1973 – as the Durban Strikes continued, and as the state began to impose banning orders on the leaders of SASO, the Black Peoples’ Convention (BPC), and their affiliated organisations – SASO released a twenty-four page pamphlet titled ‘SASO on the Attack: An Introduction to the South African Students’ Organisation 1973’. It set out the movement's position: that it was a response to ‘the oppressive clutches of white ascendency … [the] whole decrepit system of values’ that condemned ‘young black people’ to a ‘life almost devoid of sanctimonious socio-political values’.

The year before ‘must be regarded as the most productive and historic of [SASO’s] existence … community development projects were methodologically brought into operation’; the Black Workers’ Projects had been set up; a black-run student newspaper was planned; strikes had radicalised university students. Through all this, ‘SASO has come to be accepted as one of the most relevant organisations in this search for the black man's real identity and of his liberation.’ The pamphlet’s introduction concluded by suggesting that now, in 1973:

In the wake of the assault on student protest detailed in the previous chapter, this call would soon take on added resonance. As activists were harassed by the police, banned from public engagements by the state, and sometimes murdered, young men and women sought to build networks of support and solidarity. The Wages Commissions, the Black Community Programme, and the Black Peoples’ Convention were all part of this same work. But building organisational networks was not – and could not be – sufficient. Communities and activists needed to stand together, in private and in public, to resist state repression, and to keep oppositional politics alive.

In this period – late 1973 and 1974 – Black Consciousness activists sought to mobilise mass support for their struggles. This reached a head in September 1974, when members of SASO and the BPC attempted to organise nationwide rallies to celebrate the victory of Frelimo, the Mozambican armed resistance movement, in its struggle with the Portuguese colonial state.