Apartheid in South Africa


Apartheid means “apartness”. This was a policy in South Africa that allowed racial segregation. This law was practiced in South Africa before 1948, when the National party officially gave it the name Apartheid. During this time the minority of whites controlled the non-white majority. It was legal to discriminate policies and ecologically against non-whites. Before the 1960’s many laws have been created to segregate whites and non-whites. The population registration act of 1950 put all South Africans into categories. The categories are Banta (all black) colored (mixed religion) or white. The forth category was added later. It was Asian witch was mostly Indian and Pakistani. The beginning of the apartheid goes all the way back to the Boer wars in the early 1800’s. The Boers Dutch thought they were chosen by god and they should hate over blacks in Africa. Eventually the British became involved and also put themselves higher than black Africans.

During the 1960’s, 1970s, 1980’s, the government created a rule of ‘Relocation’ to force people to move to their ‘group areas’. By ‘group areas’ it means race and color. It is said that three and a half million people were forced to relocate during this time. This compares to the Nuremburg laws because the Jews were forced to move out of their homes as well. The people forced to move were people on white owned farms and families of black workers. The government tried to separate all of the non-whites from the whites just as the Germans forced the Jews to be separated from the rest of the people and live in ghettos just as the blacks were forced to live in ‘homelands’. Just as the Nuremberg laws stripped the Jews of their rights the non-whites were also stripped of their rights. In South Africa the government stripped them of their right6s with the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act. This act allowed the government to provide different levels of amenities for the different races. The restrictions were not only social but also extremely enforced by the law.


During Apartheid in South Africa, the blacks, “colored”, and the Asians were separated from the whites because they were not of European descent. The people of European descent in South Africa didn’t want any other race voting, using the same buildings, and going to the same schools as them. This was all because of the 1948 elections, where the national party campaigned on apartheid. People started to have to give up things like miscegenation, and people were classified by race. “Colored” in South Africa barely had any voting rights to start off, so it was very tough for them when they had none. All of this happened just because there were many people in South Africa that were not of European descent.

Apartheid in South Africa lasted for 20 years. Apartheid was “immune” to economics and politics. Growth rates were good during the 1960’s and inflation was not bad. Living standards for whites rose dramatically and African living standards remain depressed. A big failure in apartheid was that cities had slowed down, it had not been stopped. Economic integration was continuing manly because of government politics. The government increased the development of manufacturing and the coil industry. The result was a growing need for Africans as workers and as customers. Ever in the beging 1970’s problems were increasing and it took another 20 years before it unraveled.

By: matt, joe,scott,vinny