This article focuses on turn of the century African resistance in Port Elizabeth, a town in the eastern Cape of South Africa, to government attempts to impose residential segregation through the implementation of the Native Reserve Locations Act of 1903. Between 1901–05, the Cape colonial government attempted to force the majority of the African population out of the town centre and into New Brighton, which was the first state administered ‘native township’. Africans from different ethnic and class backgrounds refused to cooperate, instead migrating to Korsten, a freehold township, located outside of government jurisdiction and thus outside of its control. Significantly, the African middle class, many of them voters and property owners, led the resistance to the removals. At this time local conditions were such that black and white liberals in the Cape colony were politically and ideologically strong enough to prevent full implementation of the segregationist legislation. Through this study we are provided with an example of the political, economic, and social factors which influenced the direction of African resistance to residential segregation. Struggles such as this one provided the basis for the tradition of resistance to government control that currently exists among Port Elizabeth Africans.