AZAPO was formed out of the prominent black consciousness organisations namely, Black People's Convention (BPC), the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and the Black Community Programmes (BCP). These were three of the 17 black consciousness organisations that were banned on Wednesday, 19 October 1977 for their role in the 16 June 1976 Soweto uprisings. A year after the formation of AZAPO, in September 1979, at its conference in Roodepoort, the national executive was formed with Curtis Nkondo as its president. During 1987, AZAPO was banned by the South African government and forced underground and into exile. It would be unbanned in 1990. In October 1994, AZAPO merged with its sister organisation in exile, the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA).