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Apartheid, Laws

Between 1948 and 1990, South Africa was controlled by the system of apartheid (separateness). This social and legal policy was the strict racial segregation of the South African population in all aspects of life, both private and public. Apartheid laws determined where people could live, which jobs people could perform, whether people could vote, who people could marry, which schools or hospitals people could go to, and even which beaches people could visit. People's race—White, Black, Colored (mixed race), or Asian (from the Indian subcontinent or Chinese)—affected every part of their lives and work. People's race was determined by the state based on their parents' race or by a series of tests of the color of their skin, the curli-ness of their hair, and the color of their fingernails. People could apply to change their race, as was necessary if a person wanted to marry someone of a different race; very few people were able to do this.

Apartheid was the goal of the White Afrikaner political party, the National party, which was voted into power in 1948. Members systematically developed and enacted laws, described in this entry, that were designed to keep race groups apart in the country and to ensure that White South Africans, who constituted only 10% of the population, were able to benefit the most in the society.

Grand Apartheid Laws

Apartheid legislation can be divided into two broad areas: grand apartheid and petty apartheid. Grand apartheid laws determined people's race (Population Registration Act of 1950) and where they could live (Group Areas Act of 1950) and work (Bantu Building Workers Act of 1951). Tens of thousands of Black and Colored families were uprooted from their homes when the Group Areas Act reclassified large areas of the country as reserved for Whites only. They were moved onto non-White land that lacked any infrastructures or amenities. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 and the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950 banned marriage and sexual relations between people of different races.

The government sought to force Black South Africans out of White areas completely through the establishment of self-governing homelands. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959, and the Bantu Homelands Citizens Act of 1970 created eight homelands within the borders of South Africa and forced Black South Africans to take up citizenship of a homeland even if they had never lived there.

Under the Natives (Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents) Act of 1952, every Black South African needed to carry a passbook that detailed the individual's ethnicity, employment, and identity number. Adult Black South Africans were not allowed to be in a White area unless they had a job there. The “pass laws” allowed the government to expel the unemployed into the homelands and to place severe restrictions on travel for all Black South Africans. The pass laws resulted in a massive increase in arrests and imprisonment for those who were living illegally outside of their homeland, it criminalized the Black population, and it was the most hated piece of apartheid legislation.

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