In the Apartheid days Mabopane was an active base for PAC and ANC members who mobilized workers against the government and playing the South African government against the Bophuthatswana Administration. The times were tough particularly in the mid 1980s as the local authority was holding on to power. Mabopane Square used to be the gathering ground for activists and communists protesting against the government. School riots were plentiful in the 1976 student uprising. Several township administration halls were burnt and the bus depot was vandalized.