This paper investigates the objective and subjective conditions affecting the oppressed communities in Durban, South Africa, and examines the impact these had on the development of youth resistance in the 1980s. After a description of the structural context of youth experience and a history of student organization in South Africa, the paper turns to the 1980s, analysing the role of the Inkatha Youth Brigade, formed in 1976, and the Youth Forum, formed in 1983, and since 1986 affiliated to the UDF. Then it describes how occurrences in the informal shack settlements of Inanda in 1985 (youth attacked shops belonging to Indians and Africans and Indian homes) made an end to the building of a unified front among the youth. Protest, initially directed against the State, took the form of a reactionary ethnic strife. The spontaneous nature of the events at Inanda and the inability of the democratic movement to direct and channel them in a productive manner, provoked serious self-examination among resistance organizations. The article shows that the major obstacles to developing a nonracial, democratic youth culture were the structural divisions brought about by apartheid, the manoeuvrings of Inkatha, and the repression of the State. The subjective weaknesses in organizations included cultural and ideological differences, gender discrimination, inadequate leadership skills, a general lack of organizational resources, and inter and intraorganizational rivalry. Notes, ref.