Disillusionment and increasing awareness that the ANC and PAC were powerless grew during a decade in which the South African Government ever increasingly tightened its grip on black politics through the enactment of one Draconian law after another. In South Africa itself the security police greatly increased their activities. Black political leadership which threatened to further the aims of the ANC and the PAC were harassed, intimidated, jailed or banned. A black political vacuum evolved as a result of the dual forces of disillusionment and intimidation.

The disillusionment of the black public and the experiences of the ANC and PAC in exile had a devastating effect on the remnants of the two organisations in the country. During the 1950's the ANC paid too little attention to the development of strong and effective organisational structures, and they did not develop strong local and regional leadership. Both organisations, and perhaps the ANC in particular, were dominated by a charismatic leadership at the top. As organisations they had become ever more militant and the strategies of mobilising confrontationalist politics placed a premium on their national executives. Vital decisions were made in urgent circumstances at the top, and by the nature of those decisions structural support for executive decision making could not be sought.

At the height of the ANC's political power in the country the ANC and PAC had ill-developed organisational structures at grass root level. The ANC had perhaps something like 35 000 enrolled members, and the PAC had not been in existence long enough to develop a strong membership base. The leadership of the two organisations relied more on sentiment and the willingness of the people to be mobilised in protest politics than anything else.

When the two organisations' leadership went underground or into exile there remained only scattered remnants of what had really been a movement, rather than structured and developed political organisations. These remnants were ill-prepared to survive in the climate which evolved during the decade after they were banned in 1960.