Ngā Tamatoa formed

Before the Second World War more than 80% of Māori lived in rural areas. After the war Māori moved to the towns and cities in large numbers: 26% of Māori lived in urban areas in 1945, 62% in 1966 and nearly 80% by 1986. Marriages between Māori and Pākehā, and between members of different tribes, became more common, and by the 1960s the children of these marriages were the first generation to grow up in the city. Te reo Māori was declining, and English eventually became the dominant language in Māori homes. In the 1950s and 1960s Māori protest was mostly low-key, carried out through letters, petitions and deputations by bodies such as the Māori Women's Welfare League and the New Zealand Māori Council. By the late 1960s, Te Ara notes, a younger group of activists was more likely to march, picket, demonstrate and occupy.

Ngā Tamatoa (the Young Warriors) was formed in 1970 by Māori students at the University of Auckland. According to Wikipedia it grew out of a conference at the university organised by the academic Ranginui Walker, and it drew inspiration from overseas movements such as the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. NZHistory describes it as one of several new groups that questioned racial politics in New Zealand, taking its lead from liberation struggles overseas. Its members included the founding member Syd Jackson, Titewhai and Hone Harawira, Donna Awatere Huata, Tame Iti, Rawiri Paratene, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Te Ara says that for many monolingual, English-speaking Māori students the universities became places to learn their language and culture, and also the platform from which Māori political awareness grew. The group campaigned on the loss of land and language and on breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, seeking the teaching of te reo in schools and more than symbolic acknowledgement of the Treaty.

Waitangi Day was an early target. Te Ara says Ngā Tamatoa organised the first protest at Waitangi on Waitangi Day in 1971, something that became a regular occurrence; NZHistory records that in 1972 the group walked out of the ceremonies. That year the governor-general, Sir Arthur Porritt, said, 'I just do not believe that racism or discrimination exists in this country.' In 1973 members wore black armbands at the celebrations to mourn the loss of Māori land, and 'Honour the treaty' and 'The treaty is a fraud' became common refrains. The group also campaigned for the language: with the Te Reo Māori Society and Huinga Rangatahi it organised the 1972 Māori language petition, which its member Hana Te Hemara Jackson presented to Parliament on 14 September, a day that became Māori Language Day.

Ngā Tamatoa also worked with other groups against racism more widely. In March 1974 it joined the Citizens Association for Racial Equality, the Polynesian Panthers, trade unions and others in picketing the liner Ocean Monarch in Auckland to stop it deporting Tongan overstayers. The ship's British crew refused to sail with the overstayers on board, and the government rushed through a new immigration policy the next day. With the Polynesian Panthers and the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination, it set up New Perspectives on Race to run anti-racism workshops in churches, community groups and government departments. Te Ara credits the 1975 Māori land march to Te Rōpū Matakite o Aotearoa, led by Whina Cooper, and names Ngā Tamatoa among the groups that formed alliances through it; Wikipedia says Ngā Tamatoa organised the march and set up a tent embassy at Parliament afterwards. In 1979 the protests at Waitangi were taken up by the Waitangi Action Committee.

Te Ara says protest was one reason for the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975. In Te Ara's reading, Ngā Tamatoa and the Te Reo Māori Society embodied a growing politicisation in the universities, and the Māori renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s saw their graduates fighting to reverse language loss and to support land and Treaty rights. By the 1970s, Te Ara writes, new generations of urban Māori were producing the leaders of the modern Māori protest movement, and at the forefront was the Auckland-based Ngā Tamatoa.