The Pan-Africanist Congress was created 1959 with the departure from the ANC of a militant Africanist faction led by Robert Sobukwe. The PAC rejected collaboration across racial lines and disapproved of the multiracial, liberal emphasis of the 1955 Freedom Charter. It was banned in 1960, but operated a military wing, Poqo, until 1963. Unbanned in 1990, the PAC continued to support the armed struggle, through its military wing, the APLA. Its radical, socialist line attracted support in the townships and in impoverished rural areas, but it has done poorly in free elections.

— Ian Campbell