After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, legislation was enacted which discriminated against the non-White section of the population and increased the racial segregation existing at the time of Union. This angered many Blacks and caused a series of strikes by Black workers. By the 1920s responsible Europeans, particularly churchmen, saw the importance of bringing the races together. Native Welfare Societies, consisting of liberal and philanthropic Europeans, were founded which in due course were replaced by Joint Councils, inter-racial in character.

The Joint Council movement was largely the inspiration of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones and Dr. J.E.K. Aggrey who in 1921 conducted a study tour of education in South Africa on behalf of the Phelps-Stokes Fund of the United States of America. They had seen the value of inter-racial councils in America and persuaded Dr. C.T. Loram, Chief Inspector of Education in Natal, and his friend J. D. Rheinallt Jones, Secretary of the Witwatersrand Council of Education, to establish a multi-racial organisation with the aim of promoting understanding and goodwill between the races. Rheinallt Jones founded the first Joint Council of Europeans and Africans in Johannesburg in 1921 and by 1931 there were in existence thirty European-African Joint Councils' three European-Indian Joint Councils and a European-Coloured Joint Council was in the process of formation. In all eighty Joint Councils were established, many of them continuing to exist side by side with the Institute of Race Relations after it was founded in 1929. By 1951 only two Joint Councils remained, of which only one was active.

During visits to South Africa in the 1920s Dr. Jesse Jones convinced Rheinallt Jones of the need to set up a national body to centralise interracial activities. The project was made possible by finance from the Phelps-Stokes Fund and the Carnegie Corporation. Rheinallt Jones convened an inter-racial conference in Cape Town in January 1929 which revealed enthusiasm for a national organisation. He called together a committee of seven prominent South Africans not connected with any political party - E.H. Brookes, Professor J. du Plessis, Professor D.D.T. Jabavu, Dr. C.T. Loram, T.W. Mackenzie, J.H. Nicholson and J.H. Pim. They met on 9 May 1929 at the house of the Rev. Dr. R.E. Phillips in Johannesburg, resolved to fern a South African Institute of Race Relations and elected C.T. Loram chairman Howard Pim treasurer and Rheinallt Jones secretary.

With the deaths of Mackenzie end Nicholson and the transfer of Loram to a professorial chair at Yale, the Committee was reduced to six but in 1930 Dr. J.G. van der Horst was added and in 1931 Professor R.F.A. Hoernle, Leo Marquard and Senator Lewis Byron. These ten committee members are regarded as the foundation members of the Institute.

The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) was founded on 24 October 1987, as a merger of Municipal Workers' Union of South Africa , Cape Town Municipal Workers' Association (CTMWA), the Municipal workers' sections of General Workers' Union of South Africa, South African Allied Workers' Union and Transport and General Workers' Union. These unions were once individual affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, to which SAMWU also affiliated. Later SAMWU also incorporated other Municipal Workers Unions from Durban and Johannesburg.

The South African Post Office released a special edition postage stamp in 2012, depicting the Delegation of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) to England in 1914.

The image originates from a photographic collection which is held at Historical Papers in the collection A1384f Plaatje, Solomon Tshekisho, which shows the members of the delegation being Thomas Mapikela, Doctor Walter Rubusana, Reverend John Dube, Saul Msane and Sol Plaatje.

The special edition postage stamp was issued in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the ANC, and was released with as a stamp and first-day cover on the 6 January 2012, designed by Martin Rossouw. Following its release the South African Post Office donated a sheet of the stamps and first-day cover to Historical Papers, accompanied by a text explaining in short the historical events from the founding of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in January 1912 in Bloemfontein, to the renaming of the SANNC to African National Congress (ANC) in 1923.

The Southern African Centre for Survivors of Torture (SACST), formerly known as the Zimbabwe Torture Victims Project (ZTVP), was established in February 2005 and was managed by IDASA. The ZTVP's mandate was to provide medical, psychological and legal services to primary survivors of organized violence and torture (OVT) perpetrated in Zimbabwe from the year 2000 to date. In December 2006 the ZTVP became a partner project of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) until September 2007.

The SACST became an independent Section 21 Company in October 2007 and its founding objective was to facilitate access to a range of services that theoretically should be provided by the state to those seeking asylum from persecution. Its mandate has since expanded to respond to the needs of tortured asylum seekers and refugees in Southern Africa, including survivors of gross human rights violations.

The aim of the project's sponsors, the South African Council of Churches and the Christian Institute of Southern Africa, was to call together a body of experts to examine the implications of applying Christian principles to the major areas of our national life and to make recommendations for a juster social order.
The original stimulus for Spro-cas was provided by the Message to the People of south Africa, which was issued by the Theological Commission of the South African Council of Churches in September 1968. The Message provided the basic theological foundation for the project, i.e. the Gospel as reconciliation.