APARTHEID.

Apartheid is Afrikaans for separateness. From 1948 until 1990 apartheid was the government's official race policy in South Africa.

Apartheid is associated with 1948, when the National Party won elections. However, racial segregation was practiced long before 1948, just as in other European colonies. While after 1948, with the decline of European empires and liberation of colonies, racial segregation died away elsewhere, in South Africa apartheid in 1948 institutionalized what before were largely flexible social rules of racial segregation.

Apartheid's foundations were laid not only by social practice but also by the segregationist policies of British imperial rule. After the Anglo-Boer war (1899–1902) Boer generals negotiated with the British to craft a single "native policy" for South Africa. The British created the South African Native Affairs Commission (SANAC), which proposed far-reaching racial segregation with respect to land, labor, education, and politics. The 1910 Union government put the SANAC proposals into effect through laws designed to control the movement, settlement, and economic participation of blacks: the 1911 Mines and Works Act (created and regulated the category of black labor); the 1913 Natives' Land Act (provided for territorial separation of rural whites and blacks); the 1920 Native Affairs Act (proposed a system of government-appointed tribal district councils to govern blacks); and the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act (regulated the presence of blacks in urban areas).

After 1948 the National Party aimed to preserve white Afrikaner power. Their apartheid meant "total segregation"—an all-white South Africa would be created by sending blacks to "homelands." In these ethnic "homelands" blacks supposedly could enjoy citizenship and civil rights, but could obtain no citizenship rights in "white" South Africa. However, economic realities dictated another story—the migrant labor system. White-owned mines, farms, and industries depended on cheap black labor. This created the strangeness and harshness of life under apartheid—black people, after being removed from "white" areas to "homelands," had to return to work in the white economy.

Many laws were enacted to give effect to total segregation and to regulate the continued presence of blacks in "white" areas. The first was the 1949 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, followed by an amendment to the Immorality Act outlawing sexual relations between whites and individuals of any other race. 1950 saw the Population Registration Act, which defined race on the basis of physical appearance, and the Group Areas Act, which restricted racial groups to their own residential areas; and 1953 saw the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, which mandated separate amenities on public premises and transport. Other laws were the much-contested Pass Laws (1952), which forced blacks, under threat of criminal penalty, to carry passbooks wherever they went, and the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act (1951) and Bantu Authorities Act (1951), the first steps toward "separate development" as the apartheid architect Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd's (1901–1966) vision for South Africa later became known.

As apartheid grew, resistance grew. The South African Native National Congress was established in 1912 as a moderate organization focusing on the political and social conditions of black people. It was renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923. Throughout the 1950s the apart-heid government faced peaceful civic protest. The ANC, with groups from "colored," "indian," and "white" communities, staged a Defiance Campaign of peaceful resistance against apartheid laws. In 1956 the Women's March took place—20,000 women took to the streets to defy the Pass Laws. In 1955 the Freedom Charter was adopted at Kliptown during the Congress of the People. However, in December 1956 many leading activists were detained and charged with high treason. By 1961 the so-called Treason trial was over, with all the accused acquitted.

In 1959 the Pan-Africanist Congress was formed. Its first attack on apartheid was an anti–Pass Laws campaign that resulted in sixty-nine people being shot by police on 21 March 1960 at Sharpeville. In December 1961 the ANC turned to armed struggle, forming its military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe. In 1963 Nelson Mandela (b. 1918) and other antiapartheid activists were sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in the Rivonia trial. Now most of the ANC and PAC leadership was in jail or exiled, antiapartheid organizations were banned, and civil disobedience and dissent was criminalized. Nevertheless, resistance continued, even as repression grew more violent. In 1976 black children protested against apartheid "Bantu education" that forced them to be taught in Afrikaans, resulting in the Soweto uprisings of 16 June 1976, which were violently suppressed. Steve Biko (1946–1977), who created the South African Students' Organization in 1968, died in detention on 12 September 1977 after being brutally tortured by members of the security police.

Under the banner of the United Democratic Front, resistance to apartheid rule continued throughout the 1980s, through various forms of violent and nonviolent mass action. This era saw a series of states of emergency proclaimed and the widespread use of detention without trial and of assassination by the apartheid state against its opponents. Opposition to apartheid was not only internal to South Africa. The international community took a critical stance early on. With the establishment of the Republic of South Africa (1961) Verwoerd withdrew South Africa from the United Nations. The international community responded with a call for ecomonic, cultural, and other sanctions against South Africa.

Informally, apartheid ended on 2 February 1990, with the unbanning of antiapartheid organizations, the freeing of political prisoners, and the announcement that negotiations would commence for a resolution of conflict. Apartheid came to an official end with the 1994 democratic elections and the adoption of an interim (1994) and final (1996) constitution. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was one attempt to reflect publicly on the atrocities that occurred under apartheid. The legacy of apartheid lingers in South Africa and it will take many years for its effects to be addressed in any sense.

See alsoPolitical Prisoners; Racism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asmal, Kader, Louise Asmal, and Ronald Suresh Roberts. Reconciliation through Truth. A Reckoning of Apartheid's Criminal Governance. Cape Town, 1996.

Dhansay, Hanifa. Apartheid and Resistance. Swaziland, 1996.

Lapping, Brian. Apartheid: A History. London, 1986.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. London, 1994.

Saunders, Christopher, ed. Illustrated History of South Africa. Cape Town, 1988.

Karinvan Marle