The town councils of Vosloorus and Reiger Park staged a consumer boycott in Boksburg on the East Rand (now Ekurhuleni municipality, Gauteng). The boycott, by Black and Coloured residents, followed the reintroduction of petty apartheid measures by the Conservative Party (CP) controlled town council.
In the local elections of October 1988, the CP won 12 of 20 council seats. At its’ first meeting, the new Council decreed that it would begin rigorously enforcing the Separate Amenities Act, a by-then largely ignored law that re-established Whites-only toilets, parks and sports facilities. The two townships found enthusiastic corporate support. Several multinational companies like Colgate-Palmolive, American Cyanamid and Unilever provided buses to ferry shoppers to stores in neighbouring towns, cancelled expansion plans and ran advertisements denouncing the racist council.
The economy of the town suffered the consequences, as several businesses were forced to close. Boksburg was the largest of 104 municipalities in South Africa to fall into CP’s leadership.
