It is commonly held that the ANC -after its banning in 1960 and the imprisonment of its leaders - largely disappeared off the face of South Africa until public support for it revived in the wake of the Soweto uprising of 1976. This book takes issue with that view. Drawing  on substantial oral testimony, Raymond Suttner develops a convincing case that internally based activist, sometimes working independently of the ANC in exile and sometimes in combination, were able to reconstitute networks within South Africa after the organisation's banning. He discusses the broad features of their secret  underground work, the impact it had on their personal lives, and the opportunities that were presented for both bravery and abuse. One of the distinctive features of his approach is its treatment of such illegal activity through a gendered lens. Suttner concludes by exploring the dominant position which the ANC had established by the 1970s (partly through underground activity), enabling it to become the prime political beneficiary of the Soweto uprising and ultimately creating the conditions for a negotiated settlement in South Africa.

" (This work) will certainly supply the foundation for important revisions in our understanding of the history of anti-apartheid resistance politics and the ANC’s role within them. In particular, it enriches the existing historiography that addresses the 1963–1976 period. It draws upon a rich base of original data as well as assembling evidence from a range of published autobiographical testimony.” – Professor Tom Lodge

Raymond Suttner is Professor and Head of the Walter and Albertina Sisulu Knowledge and Heritage Unit, within the School for Graduate Studies at the university of South Africa. During the apartheid era he was jailed for his activities as an ANC underground operative, described in one of his earlier works, Inside Apartheid's Prison (2001)

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