New Student Organization Forms in South Africa

A powerful national student organization is about to be born in South Africa.

It will come into being next fall through the merger of the South African National Students’ Congress, a black group, and the predominantly white National Union of South African Students.

“We have outlived the tool of separate organization,” said Stephen Silver, president of the national union, known as NUSAS, on the eve of its dissolution last week.

The student congress, called SANSCO, was created in 1969 when black-consciousness leader Steve Biko led a walkout of black students from NUSAS. The split reflected growing difficulties that black and white students were having in working together under apartheid.

Student leaders say the newly reconstituted organization will seek to be politically independent, although ideologically it is expected to be close to the African National Congress.