from the white-controlled
National Union of South African Students to
found the exclusively black South African Students Organisation
(SASO).
SASOdeclared that all the victims of white racism should unite and cease to
depend on white organizations
that claimed to work for their benefit. As
Biko wrote in 1971:
Black consciousness is in essence the realisation by the black man of the need
to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their subjection-the
blackness of their skin-and
to operate as a group in order to rid themselves
of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude. It seeks to demonstrate
the lie that black is an aberration from the "normal" which is white ....
It
seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves,
their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook
to life. The interrelationship between the consciousness of self and the ernan-
cipatory programme is of paramount
importance. Blacks no longer seek to
reform the system because so doing implies acceptance of the major points
around which the system revolves. Blacks are out to completely transform the
system and to make of it what they wish. 64
The ideology of Black Consciousness penetrated the urban schools. On