Apartheid

Racial segregation and discriminatory laws existed in South Africa before 1948. After the National Party took office that year, it named and expanded a programme of racial separation called apartheid, Afrikaans for “apartness.” A series of laws classified people by race and made that classification shape access to land, housing, work, education, public facilities and political participation. The Population Registration Act and Group Areas Act of 1950 were central measures: the first formalized racial classification, while the second assigned residential and business areas by race. Pass laws restricted where Black South Africans could travel or remain. The government described the policy as “separate development,” but its laws entrenched white minority rule and unequal rights.

Apartheid reached beyond residential segregation. Separate education systems and restrictions on movement and association shaped daily life, while the homeland policy sought to assign Black South Africans to territorially fragmented areas and deny them full political membership in the country. The system was contested by many groups, including the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist Congress, trade unions, student organizations, religious groups and civic movements. Protests, strikes and campaigns of civil disobedience were met with state repression. The killing of protesters at Sharpeville in 1960 drew wider international attention; over time, internal resistance and international boycotts and sanctions increased pressure on the government.

In 1990 President F. W. de Klerk's government lifted the ban on the ANC and other liberation organizations and released Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison. Negotiations followed, and laws supporting apartheid were repealed in the early 1990s. A new constitution adopted in 1993 extended the vote across racial groups. South Africa held its first all-race national election in April 1994; the ANC won a majority and Mandela became president. The election marked the establishment of democratic majority rule and the end of legislated apartheid, though it did not immediately undo the system's accumulated social and economic inequalities.

Apartheid's legal framework was dismantled, but its effects on land ownership, wealth, education and access to opportunity did not disappear with the 1994 election. The history of the system is also a record of organized resistance and the difficult transition from minority rule to constitutional democracy. South Africa's post-apartheid institutions and efforts to address inequality developed in response to that legacy.