A different system was adopted for the arrangement of the papers in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/184-217, on South Africa, from that employed for South West Africa (Namibia). A purely chronological arrangement of the material was found to be inappropriate and so the material was arranged according to the different subjects covered. These fall into nine categories.

The first category is racial discrimination and the legal provision to enforce it. MSS. Afr. s. 1681/184-185 hold a collection of background material on legislation affecting Africans and people discriminated against by apartheid in South Africa differently from white people, beginning with the South Africa Act of 1909 and ending with the Prohibition of Proper Interference Bill of 1966. Then follows a box with material on the situation of South African citizens of Indian descent. Two boxes in this category, MSS. Afr. s. 1681/187 and MSS. Afr. s. 1681/188, cover the United Nations' investigations into the South African Racial Situation from 1953 to 1974. It ends with a single box of material on forced labour on South African farms, a problem that caused much concern to the Anti-Slavery Society as well in the late 1950s.

In the second category are two boxes of fairly general correspondence from South Africa. The first, MSS. Afr. s. 1681/190, derives from churchmen there, including Father Trevor Huddleston, Ambrose Reeves, Bishop of Johannesburg, and Joost de Blank, Archbishop of Cape Town. The second, MSS. Afr. s. 1681/191, contains letters from a number of correspondents arranged in alphabetical order. Letters from all these people, however, are to be found in other boxes in this part of the collection, arranged according to the particular subject with which their letters deal.

Education is the third category; this has four boxes. The papers in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/192 deal with education in general while those in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/193 are confined to the English Language Campaign of the early 1960s. The other two boxes, MSS. Afr. s. 1681/194 and MSS. Afr. s. 1681/195, hold the administrative papers and correspondence of the African Schools and Families Fund; this was instigated by Bishop Ambrose Reeves and significantly boosted by his visit to England in 1955 but was run by the Bureau.

A large campaign was mounted by the Bureau in the second half of the 1950s to bring pressure to bear on the South African government through a boycott of cultural relations with the Union. It originated from an idea of Trevor Huddleston's and involved a great many people famous in the world of sport and theatre. At a meeting held in the House of Lords in 1956 a manifesto was launched, protesting against apartheid in sports and the arts. This was signed by a large number of actors and athletes. Many refused to perform or play in the Union of South Africa unless mixed audiences were permitted. Papers arising from this campaign are to be found in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/196-197.

Correspondents in South Africa, principally Father Martin Jarret-Kerr, the chaplain to Baragwanath Hospital, brought to the notice of the Bureau the effect that apartheid had on the nursing profession and the training of African nurses there. A fund was established to help them obtain further training in Britain or other places where they were not banned from courses. Jane Symonds, secretary to the Bureau, managed this fund but, as she took pains to point out, independently of the Bureau. Nevertheless, the papers concerning its management and her correspondence with members of the nursing profession in England and Africa can be found in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/199.

The Africa Bureau undertook the duty of supporting those in legal difficulties in Africa where discrimination had been shown. It therefore became involved in raising funds for the defence of those accused in the South African Treason Trials in 1957-1961. Mary Benson, who had been visiting her mother, stayed on for some time in South Africa to help with the collection and administration of those funds. The Bureau became allied with Canon Collins's organisation, Christian Action, when collecting funds to support those involved in political cases in Africa However, differences arose over policy and disbursement of the funds and eventually the two bodies decided to work independently. Even after the Treason Trials ended, concern and help for banned persons, political prisoners, and their families continued and the Bureau corresponded with the several groups monitoring their welfare and collected information on the persons concerned. Material on all these matters is housed in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/200-202.

Between 1958 and 1963, the Bureau organised a series of conferences on the political and economic situation in South Africa, and interested itself in conferences held in Africa on the same matters up to the end of the decade. At the same time, the Executive Committee made attempts to draw the attention of those attending the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences in London to the state of affairs there. Papers connected with these different kinds of conference in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/203-204 form this seventh category.

Because there were so many different facets to the problems in South Africa, the Bureau found it expeditious, from time to time, either to establish a subcommittee to examine these problems more thoroughly or to liaise with another group, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement, to campaign for their solution. MSS. Afr. s. 1681/205-208 hold such committee papers, correspondence, publicity about conferences, and campaigns to boycott trade with South Africa, including the sale of arms.

The last category of this section consists of the additional sources of information upon which the Bureau's opinions and conclusions were formed and upon which its action was based. Much of the material in MSS. Afr. s. 1681/209-217, therefore, is in the form of newspaper cuttings, largely mounted by volunteer helpers in the office, but some of it is in the form of communications from various African political bodies or pamphlets, blue books, and official reports and statistics compiled from them by the Bureau itself.