BRC was established in 1982 as the Grahamstown Rural Committee. In the early 1990s the organisation relocated its main office from Grahamstown to East London, and was renamed Border Rural Committee. We continue to operate from East London to date.

The history of BRC has been an eventful one, and many successes have been registered along the way.  It is consequently very difficult to present a definitive list of the key achievements. Instead, for purposes of overview we present a major victory from each of the four five-year periods in the organisation’s history. We deal with the four periods chronologically.

Period One: the early 1980s
In the early 1980s, the Apartheid government was hell-bent on removing the so-called ‘Black spot’ communities located in the Border Corridor out of South Africa into Ciskei. The affected communities were Mgwali, Lesseyton, Goshen, Wartburg, Kwelera, Mooiplaas and Newlands. These black spots were administered by Ciskei following an agreement between South Africa and the bantustan, signed in December 1981. This was seen as a precursor to the eventual removal of all these residents into the Ciskei and was met with widespread community opposition. Inadequate administration, illegitimate tribal authorities and repression by the Ciskei authorities followed the 1981 agreement, leading to a legal challenge to the agreement by the Mgwali Residents Association (MRA). In September 1985, the MRA won an out-of-court settlement declaring the 1981 agreement null and void. In June 1986, government announced a reprieve for the seven communities, and in July 1987 government announced an abandonment of its plans to remove the communities. The struggle to resist the removal of the ‘black spot’ communities in the Border corridor had been won.

Period Two: the late 1980s
Throughout the 1980s the consolidation of Ciskei proceeded steadily. In 1988 there was an attempt to accelerate this process through the Borders of Particular States Extension Amendment Act, which amongst other things incorporated East Peelton into Ciskei. Over a year of repression and harassment from the Ciskei authorities followed; the people of Peelton resisted valiantly. From October 1989, BRC played a lead role in a national campaign to end forced incorporation into bantustans. On 29 November the South African government gave in to the pressure and offered the Peelton people land in South Africa. This was one of the great rural victories of the 1980s and it gave all other people living in Ciskei confidence that it was possible to take on the Ciskei regime, and win. In January 1990, rebellion against Sebe started in the villages of Tyolomnqa and quickly spread throughout the territory. Within two months Sebe was ousted in a coup by Gqozo, and the GRC Newsletter of March 1990 led with the memorable heading ‘Rural rebellion topples Sebe’s regime’.

Period Three: the early 1990s
The Ciskei remained in a state of turmoil until 1994 and revolt also swept through most of the small towns of the Border during this period. These situations consumed considerable organisational energy and resources. However, BRC also understood that fundamental change was imminent and thus, as early as May 1991, the Newsletter led with the following heading: ‘Land Reform? Time to face facts’. Throughout the early 1990s BRC mobilised rural communities to participate in a variety of policy discussions and processes, dealing with issues ranging from redistribution and the constitutional approach to property, to rural development and local government. In fact BRC’s most significant contribution at this time of frenetic policy making was in the sphere of local government were we led successful advocacy strategies at both national and provincial levels. Government’s 1995 decision that there would be wall-to-wall local government in South Africa (covering the rural areas) was an outcome of BRC's sustained efforts in this regard. Ever since our inception, BRC had been committed to supporting processes of democratisation at local level so the above-mentioned policy achievement was the culmination of over a decade of work in the arena of local governance.

Period Four: 1995
to date The publication of the White Paper on Land Reform in early 1997 signalled the end of the period of frenetic policy making, so most of the energy of the organisation over the past five years has gone into implementation processes of one kind or another. However, even in the most recent period there were still opportunities to make a policy impact, and BRC’s work in the area of ‘betterment and restitution’ is undoubtedly the highlight during this time. The organisation had long been concerned about the effects and legacy of betterment dispossession, but the White Paper brought these concerns to the forefront of organisational consciousness. This paper explicitly said that claims arising from betterment would not be dealt with through the restitution programme. In mid-1998 we devised an advocacy strategy to reverse this policy position, and implementation of the strategy has proceeded well over the past four years. Milestones achieved to date in this regard have included settlement of the precedent-setting Cata claim in October 2000, settlement of betterment claims in all other communal villages in the Keiskammahoek area in June 2002, using the precedent set through Cata, and reversal of government policy on ‘betterment and restitution’. Given that more South Africans were dispossessed through betterment than any other form of forced removal, we consider these to be very significant achievements.

To sum up, BRC is an organisation that has already made an indelible mark on not only the rural areas of the Border region of the Eastern Cape, but indeed on the rural areas of South Africa.