1924
5 December, Robert Mangaliso Sobukhwe is born in Graaff-Reinet a town in the Cape Province.
1940
Sobukwe enrols at Healdtown Institute where he spends six years studying with financial assistance from bursaries and additional funding provided by George Caley the school’s headmaster.
1943
Sobukwe’s schooling is interrupted when he is admitted to a hospital suffering from tuberculosis.  
1944
2 April, The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), the youth wing of the African National Congress is formed.
1946
African Miners Union (AMU) organises a strike by miners that has far reaching consequences, showing the increasing radicalisation of resistance to segregation and existing labour laws
1947
Robert Sobukwe enrols at the University of Fort Hare and joins fellow students from South Africa and other countries, eg Joe Mathews, Ntsu Mokhehle from Lesotho and Herbert Chitepo from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He is influenced by one of his lecturers, Cecil Ntloko, a follower of the All-African Convention. As a consequence Sobukwe becomes politically engaged through assisting in publishing a daily commentary on current issues, called 'Beware'. Amongst the publication’s common topic was the issue of 'non-collaboration'.
Anton Lembede considered a leading figure of Pan Africanism in South Africa dies. Sobukwe who was heavily influenced by Lembede becomes a leading advocate of the Africanist thinking in the ANC.
1948
August, Godfrey Pitje, a lecturer in the Department of African Studies begins an initiative to form a branch of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) at Fort Hare. Sobukwe and his classmates were at first sceptical because for them the ANC was compromised by its continuing participation in the Native Representative Council and the township Advisory Boards. Sobukwe reluctantly joins the ANCYL at Fort Hare.  

House number T159 on Robben Island where Robert Sobukwe was detained isolated from other prisoners. Source: http://tracks4africa.co.za/

The Nationalist Party (NP) wins a majority in the general election and introduces a policy of apartheid.
1949
Sobukwe is elected as president of the Fort Hare Students' Representative Council.
June, Sobukwe addresses the Cape African National Congress in Port Elizabeth.
13 August, I.B Tabata writes a letter to Robert Sobukwe congratulating him on his presentation at the Cape African National Congress held in Port Elizabeth.
Sobukwe completes his studies and obtain a Degree in Native Administration. 
December, Sobukwe is selected by Godfrey Pitje as the Youth League National Secretary.
1950
Sobukwe is employed as a teacher at Jandrell Secondary School in Standerton. Sobukwe marries Veronica Mathe who worked as a nurse.
1952
Sobukwe backs the Defiance Campaign and is fired from the school in Standerton for taking part in the Defiance Campaign but is later reinstated.
1954
After moving to Johannesburg, Sobukwe obtains work as a lecturer of African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Sobukwe also works as an editor for a publication known as The Africanist. His contributions criticise the ANC for allowing itself to be dominated by what he called ‘liberal-left-multi-racialists'.
1957
Sobukwe graduates with BA (Hons) and continues working as a Methodist lay preacher
1958
The Africanist, a journal providing a forum for ideological debates within the Africanist movement is established.
November, At a meeting in  Orlando, Africanists clash with those who favoured the Congress of the People approach to the struggle which declared that South Africa belongs to all who live in it Black and White. Subsequently Africanists are ejected from the meeting.
1959
4-6 April, An Africanist group who broke away from the African National Congress hold their first national meeting in Johannesburg at the Orlando Communal Hall under the banner “Africanist Liberation Congress”. Subsequently, the PAC is launched and Robert Sobukwe is elected as the first president of the organisation.
1960
February, Sobukwe, Potlako Leballo and several members of the PAC National Executive Committee, attend a rally in the Western Cape. When a crowd of PAC supporters at the rally in Bunga Square, Langa were asked for a Xhosa translation of the organisation’s name, Mr Allan Bula, a PAC member from the PAC branch in Kensington outside Langa suggested Umbutho wama Afrika Poqo. Sobukwe gave his nod. This is where the name “Poqo” was first used in relation to the PAC.
16 March, Robert Sobukwe writes to the commissioner of police, Major General Rademeyer, stating that the PAC would be holding a five-day, non-violent, disciplined and sustained protest campaign against pass laws, starting on 21 March.
19 March, Sobukwe announces that the PAC would embark on a campaign against the pass laws from Monday 21 March. He called on people to leave their passes at home and present themselves peacefully at police stations for arrest.
20 March, Anticipating a backlash from the government on its impending protest, Sobukwe instructs Peter Molotsi, the PAC Secretary for Pan African Affairs to leave the country and mobilise political support abroad.
21 March 1960, Sobukwe resigns from his post as a lecturer. As he walks 8-km walk to the police station, small groups of men from neighbouring areas like Phefeni, Dube and Orlando West join him. He is subsequently arrested together with other leading members of the PAC. More people are detained in Pretoria, Durban and East London.
23 March, Robert Sobukwe, president of the PAC, and P.K Leballo, its national secretary, as well as 11 others are charged with incitement to riot.
4 May, Sobukwe is sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for incitement after the anti pass campaign aimed at forcing the government to repeal to pass laws. Leballo is sentenced to 2 years in prison while others receive sentences ranging between 6 months and 3 years.
1963
1 May, Prime Minister BJ Vorster introduced the General Laws Amendment Bill which would permit the detention in solitary confinement without trial for 90 days. Subsequently, the General Laws Amendment Act is passed and among other powers that it had, the Minister of Justice could detain political prisoners who had finished serving their sentences.
3 May, A clause in the General Laws Amendment Act permitting the re-detention of a political prisoner who had finished serving their sentence is applied to Robert Sobukwe. Instead of being freed after completing prison sentence, Sobukwe’s detention is extended. This clause becomes known as the ‘Sobukwe Clause’ as it was repeatedly invoked until 1968. Sobukwe is subsequently banished to Robben Island where he stayed under 24-hour guard in solitary confinement away from other prisoners for six years.
1966
April, Thirty Poqo members held in the Gamkaspoort prison are accused of sabotage and conspiracy to murder warders.
28 June, Seven Poqo men are sentenced in the Port Elizabeth court for conspiring to blow up municipal buildings and railway bridges. Another group of four men were sentenced to five years for receiving military training in Lesotho and for leaving the country unlawfully.
1968
Twelve members of Poqo are put on trial for planning to attack the police station, a power station and a post office in Victoria West.
1969
After his release from Robben Island, Sobukwe was allowed to join his family in Kimberley but remained under twelve-hour house arrest.
Poqo activists operating in Graaff-Reinet in the western part of the Cape Province and the Mount Coke areas in the eastern part were sentenced for coordinating Poqo activities under the guise of a religious organisation.
1971
22 June, Pretoria court ruled that the former leader of the banned Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Robert Sobukwe, would not be allowed to use his exit permit (approved by the Minister of Interior) to leave South Africa for his studies in the United States
1975
13 June, Sobukwe completes his articles in Kimberley and is admitted as an attorney. He establishes his own law firm and practices as a lawyer.
December, Sobukwe is invited to attend the presidential celebrations of President William Tolbert in Monrovia, Liberia which would be held in January 1976.
1978
27 February, Robert Sobukwe passed away on from lung cancer in Kimberley.
11 March, Sobukwe is buried in Graaf-Reinet in a funeral attended by amongst others Bishop Desmond Tutu and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi. An angry mob of PAC supporters attacked Buthelezi at the funeral and were prevented from bringing him to harm by the swift actions of his bodyguards.

Collections in the Archives

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Timeline 1924 - 1978
Robert Sobukwe