The University of the North, a regional and national centre of activism.

The Extension of University Education Act of 1959 created a system of universities and colleges across South Africa that were segregated not just by race, but by ethnic group. One of these, the University College of the North, was responsible for educating students of Sotho, Tswana, Venda, and Tsonga backgrounds who, it was imagined, would become the civil servants, doctors, engineers and other professionals who would populate the surrounding “homelands” of Venda, Lebowa, Gazankulu, and Bophuthatswana. Instead, “Turfloop”, as the University College of the North was known, became a centre for anti-apartheid political activism for students and young people around..