2015 Apartheid and South Africa
Road to Apartheid
South Africa: Divided by Race
• Decolonization in South Africa was tainted by the clash
between white and black citizens of the newly free
country.
• The government that declared freedom from Britain was
controlled by the white minority, largely descended
from the Dutch Boers.
• These Afrikaners practiced the policy of apartheid
(extreme racial segregation).
• South Africa is one of the world’s richest sources of gold
and diamonds.
• Between the1960’s and 1990’s, the white government of
South Africa turned the country into the wealthiest,
most modern, and most industrialized on the continent.
A Country Divided
• After the end of colonial rule, white South Africans made
up only 21.5% of the total population and of these, an
English-speaking minority dominated government and
business in the cities.
• Most whites were Afrikaans-speaking Boers, mostly
farmers and still bitter about the war
• The majority black population, 67%, included many
different groups of people including Zulu and Xhosa of the
Transkei region.
• Other groups were much smaller.
• By 1910, black Africans owned less than
10% of a country their ancestors
completely controlled.
• 1913, the South African Parliament
passed a Native Land Act that limited the
blacks’ ownership of land even more.
– Apartheid placed restrictions on how people
could live. For example, black South Africans
were made to live in tiny clusters of homes
called townships.
Other Ethnic Groups
o Coloureds: 9% of the population.
o Indian immigrants: 2.5% of the
population.
Both groups had varying rights in the
Cape, but were not treated as equals by
most whites
The Native Homeland Act
separated different African
tribes into segregated
areas.
This act set aside
7.3% of the country’s land
Aside as reservations and
banned black Africans
from buying land outside
these areas.
Road to Apartheid
In 1912, the South African Native National
Congress (later known as the ANC – 1923)
was founded to unite black Africans and
defend their interests.
In 1913, the Afrikaaner Nationalist Party was
established.
ANC
• African National Congress (ANC) was created
to aide in the civil rights movement.
Peaceful Protest---Connects to India--Gandhi and Civil Disobedience
• 1912, a young Indian Lawyer living in Cape
Town named Mohandas K. Gandhi became
outraged after being thrown off the train for
sitting in a “white’s only” seat.
• He organized a peaceful protest march,
inspiring some black South Africans to form a
civil rights organization.
Whites Asserting Control
• In 1924, the Labour Party defeats the South
African Party.
• Led by James Hertzog, South Africa became
more independent of British control and
favored the interests of whites, especially
Afrikaners.
• Afrikaans is confirmed as an official
language along with English.
What is Apartheid?
South Africa
In the early 1900s South Africa was run by white Afrikaners—descendants
of the original Dutch settlers. Even though South Africa had received
independence from Great Britain in 1910, nonwhites in South Africa were
not free under the Afrikaner government.
Apartheid
• 1948, racial discrimination
heightened when Afrikanerdominated National Party began to
run South African government
• Instituted policy of apartheid,
“apartness” in Afrikaner language
Racial Separation
• Apartheid policy divided into four
racial groups: White, Black,
Colored (mixed ancestry), Asian
• Attempted to create greater
separation between whites,
nonwhites, impose harsh controls
Apartheid laws banned interracial marriages, and placed further
restrictions on African ownership of land and businesses.
Apartheid
• a method of “divide and rule” to
counteract the so-called "black
danger" Afrikaner rulers saw Africans
as threatening to overrun or engulf
them by their sheer numbers.
• Brutal racism: imprisonment, police
killings and murder
Apartheid
• “Apartheid” is a word meaning
“Separateness”
• Black South Africans, who made up 75%
of the population, and other non-white
People lived under government
institutionalized racial segregation from
1948 to 1994.
• Non-whites were stripped of citizenship
and necessities such as medical care and
education.
What is Apartheid?
• Apartheid= separateness
• A policy of racial discrimination
• Began in 1948 by South Africa’s
government
• Black South Africans (more than
75% of pop.) were forced to live
under strict segregation
Hendrik
Verwoerd
•Prime Minister
of South Africa
from 1958 until
his assassination
in 1966
•“Architect of
Apartheid”
Practice of Apartheid
• 1. Legislation was passed prohibiting miscegenation
(mixed-race marriage)
• 2. Individuals were classified by race, and a
classification board was created to rule in
questionable cases. Different members of the same family
found themselves in different race groups.
People were classified into 4 main groups:
1. White
2. Black
3. Indian
4. Coloured (mixed race)
3. The Groups Area Act of 1950 became the heart of
the apartheid system designed to geographically
separate the racial groups.
On your Left Side:
• Imagine you are one of the black
non-citizens of South Africa.
• How would you feel about what
is happening in your country?
Why?
• What would you do about it?
Why?
Apartheid Laws
Apartheid Laws
Laws Harsh on Blacks
Citizenship Denied
• Apartheid laws especially harsh
on blacks in South Africa
• Under apartheid, only white
South Africans could vote, hold
political office
• Required to carry passes,
identity books
• Also faced imprisonment if
police found them in an area for
more than 72 hours without
pass
• Blacks made up nearly 75
percent of population, were
denied South African citizenship
• Restricted to certain
occupations, very little pay
Some Rules of Apartheid
• Africans had to be
legally classified (Black,
White, Colored, Indian)
• Africans were not
allowed to have
interracial marriages
• Africans had to carry
registration cards with
their race indicated
• Africans had to be
separated publicly
(restaurants, hospitals,
beaches, theaters,
pools, restrooms, etc)
• Africans also had
separate educational
systems (lower
standards for blacks)
Apartheid Laws
• Black people were not allowed to employ white
people.
• Black police were not allowed to arrest whites.
• Cinemas and theatres in "white areas“ were not
allowed to admit blacks.
• Blacks were not allowed to buy hard liquor
Apartheid
No Rights for Non-whites
•
•
•
•
•
No right to vote
No ownership of land
No right to move freely
No right to free speech
No right to protest the
government
Apartheid Laws
•
•
•
•
•
•
Trains and buses were segregated.
Black buses, known as "green buses” because they had a
green marker on the front windscreen, stopped at black
bus stops and white buses at white ones.
1st and 2nd class train carriages were for whites only. 3rd
class carriages were for blacks only.
Public beaches were racially segregated, with the best
ones reserved for whites.
Public swimming pools and libraries were also segregated.
There were practically no pools nor libraries for blacks.
Apartheid Laws
• Black Africans were prohibited from attending
"white" churches
• Most blacks were stripped of their South
African citizenship when the "homelands"
were declared "independent".
• They thus were no longer able to apply for
South African passports.
• Pedestrian bridges, drive-in cinema parking
spaces, graveyards, parks, pedestrian
crossings, public toilets and taxis were also
segregated.
Apartheid-Public facilities and jobs
 Medical care and other public services and provided
black people with service inferior to those of Whites
Practical separation of residential areas
Separation of public institutions e.g. schools and
hospitals.
Separation of jobs, ”jobs for whites only”
Separate use of facilities like toilets, chairs, bus stops,
stair-cases etc.
Black buses stopped at black bus stops and white
buses at white ones.
Trains, hospitals and ambulances were segregated
What does Kaffir mean?
• The word Kaffir is an ethnic slur that is mostly used
in Jamaica and South Africa.
• Referring to someone from Jamaica or South Africa
as Kaffir would be the same as referring to an
African-American person as the “N-word.”
• This usage and “strength” of Kaffir is fading away.
Examples of Apartheid Laws
Looking into Apartheid…
1948-Racism
institutionalized
-Marriage between blacks
and whites prohibited
-”white-only” jobs
sanctioned
1950-Population
Registration Act
-Divided South Africans into
white, black (Africans), and
colored (mixed descent),
Indian/Asian
-Based on appearance, social
acceptance, and descent
-Blacks-forced to carry “pass
books” holding fingerprints,
photograph, and information
on access to non-black areas
The History of Apartheid in South Africa
Apartheid- Marriages and Business
• Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 55 of
1949, prohibiting marriages between white
people and people of other races
• Blacks were not allowed to run a business in
the areas that were meant for white South
Africans.
Images of Apartheid
Apartheid Laws
1. THE POPULATION REGISTRATION ACT—grouped every South African
into a particular “race” (white, Indian, Coloured, and Black). Only
whites could vote. Those lower down on the list had fewer rights.
2. THE MIXED MARRIAGES ACT—made it a crime for any marriage to
take place between whites and any other “racial” group. Only 75
marriages between blacks and whites had been recorded before
Apartheid began.
3. THE IMMORALITY ACT—made it a crime for any sexual act to be
committed between a white person and any other “racial” group.
Between 1950-1985, 24,000 people were prosecuted for this crime.
4. THE GROUP AREAS ACT—divided South Africa into different areas
where the different “race” groups could live. Of the 3.5 million people
who had to leave their homes because of this act, only 2% were white.
5. THE PASS LAWS—made it mandatory for blacks to carry pass books at
all times, which allowed them to have permission to be in a white area
for a limited amount of time. Without their pass, they were arrested.
Apartheid
separated
the whites
from
the nonwhites
On your Left Side:
•Which of these laws
makes you most
angry? Why?
• On your Left
Side:
• What is the
main point the
cartoonist is
making about
apartheid?
• How can you
tell?
Homelands and Townships
1951 Bantu Authorities Act
• Created basis for
ethnic government in
African reserves or
“homelands”
• Blacks had no rights
in South Africa.
• Their rights were
restricted to the so
called “homelands”.
• The White Government
had complete control
over the homelands.
By Mzoli Mncanca
Homelands
• The Black majority were
forced to live in
“Homelands” that were
similar to our Aboriginal
Reservations.
• Black areas rarely had
plumbing or electricity.
• In reality however, a
majority of Black South
Africans never resided in
these "homelands."
Homelands
Townships
Further Segregation
• Apartheid placed limits on
where blacks could live
• Restricted businesses allowed
in townships, kept people poor
• Required to live in impoverished
areas of cities called townships
• 1950s, created rural
“homelands” for tribes, groups
Citizenship
• Did not include good farmland,
resources
• Used homelands as excuse for
depriving blacks of citizenship
Aliens
• Men forced to migrate without
families to work in mines,
factories, farms
• Homeland policy made millions
resident aliens in own country
Bantustans or Homelands
 H. F. Verword, Minister of Native Affairs, later
Prime Minister, and Secretary for Native Affairs,
architects of the policy.
• - transformed African reserves into “self-governing
states,” “bantustans”, homelands.
- 1951 ruled out possibility of full independence for
these states
- in 1959 that policy would change
 The homeland policy was designed to maintain and
strengthen white supremacy.
• “Reservations” or
Homelands
“Bantustans”
• Verwoerd established 9
African groups
• Each was to become a nation
within its own homeland
• Africans had rights and
freedoms
• Outside the homelands,
treated as aliens
• Poor quality land with
erosion
• Completely incapable of
supporting large populations
Homelands
• Blacks would no longer be citizens of South
Africa;
• rather, they would become citizens of the
independent "homelands".
• In terms of this model, blacks became
(foreign) "guest labourers" who merely
worked in South Africa as the holders of
temporary work permits.
Typical Homestead
Homelands
• Covered 13% of South Africa’s land area
for 75% of its population.
• Economic development was outlawed.
• The only work was in the white areas
• Blacks were forced to live apart from
their families to work in the white areas
where they had to carry Passes at all
times.
Homelands
• Some eighty-seven percent of the land was
reserved for whites, coloureds and Indians
(20% of the population)
• About thirteen percent of the land was
divided into ten 'homelands' for blacks (80%
of the population)
Homelands
• In practice, this prevented non-white people
— even if actually a resident in white South
Africa — from having a vote, restricting their
rights to faraway homelands that they may
never have visited.
• Education, medical care, and other public
services were sometimes claimed to be
separate but equal, but those available to
non-white people were generally inferior.
Homelands
• Blacks could not live or work in white areas unless
they had a pass - nicknamed the 'dompas' ('dumb
pass' in Afrikaans).
• Only blacks with "Section 10" rights (those who had
migrated to the cities before World War II) were
excluded from this provision. Whites also required
passes in black areas.
• A pass was issued only to a black person with
approved work. Spouses and children had to be left
behind in non-white areas.
• Many white households employed blacks as
domestic workers, who were allowed to live on the
premises— often in small rooms external to the
family home.
The township of Langa in Cape Town,
showing the dormitory blocks built for
male workers
Rural vs. Urban
• Group Acts of 1950
& 1986
• 1.5 Million Africans
were forced from
urban areas to rural
reservations
• 1961 – Pressure
from UN caused
South Africa to
withdraw from the
Commonwealth of
Nations
Houses in Soweto, a black township.
Typical Squatter’s Camp
Umbulwana, Natal
in 1982.
Called "a black spot"
because it is in a
"white" area.
Eventually
demolished and the
inhabitants forced to
move to identically
numbered houses in
"resettlement"
villages in their
designated
"homelands.“
Millions of black
South Africans were
forcibly "resettled" in
this way.
On your Left Side:
• Using the previous pictures,
imagine what a day living in the
homelands would be like from
getting up to going to bed.
• Explain.
Pass Books and Pass Checks
The Pass Book
• Needed special permits to live outside
of reservations, but not with family
• Lived in Townships (the city’s perimeter)
• Curfew regulations
• Passbook raids
• Failure to meet curfew or have passbook
= subject to arrest
Pass Checks
• Checks were
performed at random
of any/all black
Africans.
• Those without Pass
were arrested and
fined. If they couldn’t
pay the fine, they were
sent to work camps.
Courtesy of www.unitedstreaming.com
Checking Passbook
Pass Books Effects
• Blacks and coloureds had to carry identity
documents (passbooks), which prevented them
from migrating to white South Africa.
• Blacks were prohibited from living in (or even
visiting) 'white' towns without specific permission.
• For Blacks, living in the cities was normally restricted
to those who were employed in the cities.
• Direct family relatives were excluded, thus
separating wives from husbands and parents from
children.
Government Repression of the
Blacks Becomes More Violent
Severe Penalties for Protesters
The penalties imposed on political
protest, even non-violent protest, were
severe.
During states of emergency, anyone
could be detained without a hearing by
a low-level police official for up to six
months.
Thousands of individuals died in
custody, frequently after gruesome acts
of torture.
Repression (a general intro):
• 1950s- more than 500,000 pass-law arrests
annually
• 1950s- more than 600 inhabitants jailed as
communists; nearly 350 people “banned”
• Increasingly ruthless methods used
starting in 1960s including routine torture,
political assassination, house arrests, etc.
• Around 10,000 people arrested in early
1960s for political offenses, etc.
1953- Public Safety Act and
Criminal Law Amendment Act
• Gave government power to
declare states of emergency,
increasing punishments for
protesting against or
supporting repeal of a law:
fines, imprisonment, whippings
• 1960-Government declared
state of emergency when
large group of blacks in
Sharpeville refused to carry
their passes
– Emergency lasted for 156 days,
69 people dead and 187 people
wounded
Photo and History: The History of Apartheid in South Africa
On your Left Side:
• Are there any rules we have
today that you can relate to
apartheid? What are they?
• Why do you think these types of
rules keep on being created in
various countries?
Education under Apartheid
Bantu Education Act
• The 1953 Bantu Education Act was one of apartheid's most
offensively racist laws.
• It brought African education under control of the
government and extended apartheid to black schools.
• Previously, most African schools were run by missionaries
with some state aid.
• South Africans were to receive an education designed to
provide them with skills to serve their own people in the
homelands, to work as maids, or to work in labouring jobs
under whites.
Education Under Apartheid
• Bantu Education did enable more children in Soweto to
attend school than the old missionary system of
education, but there was a severe lack of facilities.
• Nationally public to teacher ratios went up from 46:1 in
1955 to 58:1 in 1967.
• Overcrowded classrooms were used on a rote basis.
• There was also a lack of teachers, and many of those
who did teach were under-qualified.
• In 1961, only 10 percent of black teachers held a
matriculation certificate [last year of high school].
Separate Unequal Education
Bantu Education Act of 1953
• HF Verwoerd : “Natives (blacks) must be taught from an
early age that equality
with Europeans (whites) is not for
them.”
• Student/teacher ratio
46:1-1955, 58:1 -1967
• Overcrowded classrooms,
poor facilities,
under-qualified teachers
Apartheid Education
 Bantu Education Act (1953) gave the central
government control over African education
 "Native education should be controlled . . . in
accord with the policy of the state . . . If the
native in South Africa today in any kind of
school in existence is being taught to expect
that he will live his adult life under a policy of
equal rights, he is making a big mistake . . .
There is no place for him in the European
community above the level of certain forms
of labor." -Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister
By Mzoli Mncanca
Effects from Bantu Education Act
• The government controlled the non-whites' lives.
• Blacks could not choose where to go to school, where
to live, what job to have, and they couldn't get
medical care (or if they did, it wasn't good health
care).
• When walking around town, blacks had to have passes
to prove that they lived there and had a job.
With your partner on your Left Side:
• Compare and contrast the
treatment of blacks in
American before the
abolishment of Jim Crow Laws
to that of blacks in South
Africa under Apartheid.
Education and Soweto
• Because of the government's homelands policy, no new
high schools were built in Soweto between 1962 and
1971 -- students were meant to move to their relevant
homeland to attend the newly built schools there.
• Then in 1972 the government gave in to pressure from
business to improve the Bantu Education system to
meet business's need for a better trained black
workforce.
• 40 new schools were built in Soweto.
• Between 1972 and 1976 the number of pupils at
secondary schools increased from 12,656 to 34,656.
• One in five Soweto children were attending secondary
school.
Young school children in a classroom in the squatter
camp of Cross Roads, South Africa, in 1979. (UN Photo#
143373 by Peter Magubane)
Conclusion: Key Facts
• The Bantu Education Act was one of apartheid's
most offensively racist laws.
• During this time the government controlled the
non-whites' lives.
• In high school, blacks had to learn a language.
• The riot in Soweto started off as a peaceful
march, but then changed into a violent riot.
• Students in the 1970's and 80's were referred to
as the lost generation of South Africa because
many blacks lost their education.
Education and Soweto
• So when the Department of Education issued its decree that
Afrikaans was to become a language of instruction at school, it was
into an already volatile situation.
• Students objected to being taught in the language of the
oppressor.
• Many teachers themselves could not speak Afrikaans, but were
now required to teach their subjects in it.
• When the 1976 school year started, many teachers refused to teach
in Afrikaans.
• But generally students were disparaging of the attitude of their
teachers and parents.
• One student wrote to The World newspaper: "Our parents are
prepared to suffer under the white man's rule. They have been
living for years under these laws and they have become immune to
them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is
designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth."
Lost Generation of South Africa
• Students of the 1970's and 80's are referred to
as the lost generation of South Africa.
• They are often called this because the 1970s
and 80s was the time period that a lot of black
South Africans lost their education.
On your Left Side:
• With your partner,
compare and contrast
issues and problems with
the American education
system to that of education
under apartheid.