The term Black Consciousness stems from American educator Du Bois’s evaluation  of the double consciousness of American blacks being taught what they feel inside to  be lies about the weakness and cowardice of their race. Du Bois insisted that black  people take pride in their blackness as an important step in their personal liberation. 
Biko’s understanding was further shaped through the lens of postcolonial (after  colonisation) thinkers. Biko reflects the concern for the struggle of the black person as  a human being, dignified and proud of his blackness, in spite of the oppression of  colonialism … The aim of this global movement of black thinkers was to restore black  consciousness and African consciousness, which they felt, had been suppressed  under colonialism. 

 [From Footprints in the Sands of Time by the Department of Education]

On one of the programmes that left the BCM's most enduring legacy, Ramphele  wrote: ‘The programme for leadership development involved several levels of training  and was undertaken as a joint venture by the SASO and BPC ... Weekend “formation  schools” were held to train university students in various skills. In addition, an  extensive training programme for youth leadership was undertaken to address the  needs of high-school and township-based youth clubs in all the provinces of South  Africa.’ 
By early 1972 SASO branches catering for students in high schools were either in  existence or in formation in far-flung places such as Umtata, Kimberley and Port  Elizabeth in the Cape; Pietermaritzburg in Natal; Pretoria and Springs in the  Transvaal and Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State.  
In 1973, SASO held a leadership seminar in Durban, which gave birth to the Natal  Youth Organisation. Another workshop was held in the Transvaal with similarly  gratifying (pleasing) results. At these ‘formation schools’ students acquired critical,  analytical skills and learnt about the political situation in other parts of the continent.  They engaged in vigorous (lively) debates about events in South Africa. Murphy  Morobe, one of the products of these ‘formation schools’, describes their importance  in his political education as follows: 'We got introduced to a way of thinking, a way of  taking responsibility, how to take initiative ... leadership in the kinds of situations that  we were involved in. Other graduates of the ‘formation schools’ who became  significant leaders in the liberation movement and in a transformed South Africa  include Amos Masondo, Mathe Diseko, Itumeleng Mosala, Khehla Mthembu and Cyril  Ramaphosa.  
Training programmes provided ‘practical exposure to community development’ and  ‘skills in administration, organisational dynamics, social analysis and public speaking’.  They also taught students on how to resist Bantu education. 

 [From The Road to Democracy in South Africa by M Mzamane et al]

Sibongile Mkhabela, a leader of the South African Students’ Movement (SASM) at  Naledi High, recalls that ‘there was serious mobilisation in the schools and this was  done mainly through the SASM. SASM members were saying that this situation could  not be allowed to continue. That was the build-up to the meeting on 13 June’.  
Nearly 400 students attended the meeting in Orlando on Sunday, 13 June. It was  there that Tsietsi Mashinini, 19-year-old leader of the SASM branch at Morris  Isaacson (school), proposed a mass demonstration against Afrikaans on the following  Wednesday. Mashinini was an extremely powerful speaker and his suggestion was  greeted with cheers of support. An action committee was formed under the leadership  of Mashinini and Seth Mazibuko, another charismatic (charming) Form 2 (Grade 9)  student who had led the initial class boycott at Orlando West Junior Secondary  School. ‘We thought that if we leave those classrooms and come as a big group and  show the world that now it was tough out there in the classrooms,’ recalls Seth  Mazibuko, ‘something would be done’ … On the cold and smoggy (misty) morning of  Wednesday, 16 June, groups of excited students assembled at the different points  throughout the township ... Columns of students converged on Orlando West from all  over the township. By 10:30 over 5 000 students had gathered in Vilikazi Street and  more were arriving every minute.  

[From Soweto, A History by P Bonner and L Segal]

The objectives of the TRC were to establish a complete picture as possible of the  causes, nature and extent of the gross violation of human rights. It also had to  facilitate the granting of amnesty to persons who made full disclosure of all the  relevant facts related to acts of violence. The TRC was also charged with making  known the fate of victims and restoring their human and civil dignity of such victims,  by granting them the opportunity to tell their stories, by recommending reparation 
measures and providing them with compensation. The TRC also had to make  recommendations on how to develop a political culture in South Africa that would be  respectful of the human rights of all citizens.  

 [From South Africa’s Transition to Democracy by S. Shaw]

De Kock had been an ‘implicated witness’ in the TRC hearing of five white former  security policemen in Port Elizabeth who were applying for amnesty for the bombing  … The ‘Motherwell Bombing’ was ordered by the commander of the police, General  Nic van Rensburg, who had approached De Kock and asked him to ‘make a plan’ in silencing the Motherwell policemen.  
De Kock set out first to design the plan and then to execute it. He approached the  technical division of the Pretoria police and instructed them to build a bomb that could  be exploded by remote control … De Kock testified that the three black policemen  were sent on a false mission in a car on which the explosives had secretly been  planted. The bomb was set off as planned by remote control, killing the Motherwell  policemen, as well as a fourth man, a friend who was in the car with them.  
This was De Kock’s first appearance before the TRC. As he concluded his testimony,  he made an appeal to meet with the widows of the victims of the Motherwell bombing.  He wanted to apologise to them but wished to do so privately, he said. I was intrigued  by De Kock’s request …  
The widows’ lawyer agreed to the meeting ... ‘I was profoundly touched by him,’ Mrs Faku said of her encounter with De Kock. Both women (the widows) felt that De  Kock had communicated to them something he felt deeply and had acknowledged  their pain. 'I couldn’t control my tears. I could hear him, but I was overwhelmed by  emotion, and I was just nodding, as a way of saying yes, I forgive you. I hope that  when he sees our tears, he knows that they are not only tears for our husbands, but  tears for him as well ... I would like to hold him by the hand, and show him that there  is a future, and that he can still change'.  

 [From A Human Being Died That Night by P Gobodo-Madikizela]

The great crevices (gaps) in our society which represented the absence of a national  consensus about matters that are fundamental to the creation of the new society are  also represented by the controversy which seems to have arisen around the work of  the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 
The hatred and animosity (hostilities) of the past will not go away unless the truth is  told about what happened. The telling of the truth is painful to all of us. Where gross  violations of human rights have occurred on either side of the conflict, they cannot but  diminish anyone of us who were the perpetrators. 
We are diminished by the acts which occurred, and not by their recounting to the  Commission and the nation. Something of what we are worth will be restored by the  courage we show by telling the truth and admitting that a wrong was done where it  was done. 

[From The Life And Times Of Thabo Mbeki by A Hadland and J Rantao]