Apartheid Paper 1: Rights and Protests

Grand Apartheid vs. Petty Apartheid

Grand apartheid - Determined people’s races. It dictates land and political rights. The grand apartheid defined where Whites, Africans, Coloreds, and Asians could live by race. This caused millions of South Africans to be uprooted and relocated.

Case Study: Group Areas Act (1950), Coloureds from District Six to the Cape Flats (1968), Population Registrations Act (1950)

Petty apartheid - Racist laws affecting the daily life. Was the starting of life in a racially segregated hospital and buried in a racially segregated cemetery.

Case study: Hottentot Proclamation (1909), Alexandria Bus Boycotts (1943 - led by Mandela, 1957)

Division and classification

Division and classification was based off of your ethnic background. Whites would be considered the Dutch, visually white colored people, and Japanese. Then Africans, then coloreds who were mixed, and then Asians which were mostly pertaining to Indians. Majority of times, Chinese would be considered black.

Case study: Population Registration Act (1950). Divides up South Africans into 4 races: white, Asians, Coloureds, and Africans

Segregation of populations and amenities

Bantu Education Act (1953) - Providing a different, degrading education system for Africans. Predestining Africans to just be labor workers.

Defiance Campaign (1952) - Initiated by ANC and SAIC, refusing to carry passes and going into white areas.

Group Areas Act (1950) - Removing non-whites from their communities and relocating them into different areas, often which were small and crowded with very bad land.

Alexandra Bus Boycott (1943, 1957)

Creation of townships and forced removals

Group Areas Act (1950) - removing nonwhites from their communities and segregating them into smaller, crowded areas often in worse quality.

Creation of Homelands/ Bantu Authorities Act (1951)

Segregation of education

Bantu Education Act - providing nonwhites with a different education, teaching Africans labor work rather than what they believed was intellectual. Schools were also poorly funded as well.

Bantustan System

Bantu Authorities Act (1951) - Creation of 10 homelands in South Africa bathed on ethnicity. The land granted was often unproductive and this excluded blacks from the South African political sphere.

Bantu Homelands Citizens Act (1970) - Granted independence but did not allow any political and economic responsibility, allowing only the South African government in control. The homelands had very little running water, poor living conditions, and lack of economic opportunities. Everything was poor and overpopulated.

Bantu Education Act (1953)

[Non-violent Protests] Bus boycotts

Alexandra Bus Boycott (1943) - led by Mandela

Alexandra Bus Boycott (1957) - Fee reversed to original one after 3 months

[Non-Violent Protests] Defiance Campaign

Date - 1952

Initiated by ANC and SAIC. It was the refusal to carry passes and going into white areas. The idea was to overwhelm the system by having so many participate that there would be too many to arrest and not enough space to put them. This created a positive effect as the ANC membership went from 7,000 to 100,000 along with a peaceful campaign and the foundation of the Congress Alliance. The negative effects was that it didn’t draw enough attention from the government.

[Non-Violent Campaigns] Freedom Charter

Date: 1955

Was the historical document that served as a framework for the anti-apartheid struggle. It was listing the demands and desires of the people in South Africa, serving as the core principles of the South African Congress.

The response to the Freedom Charter, the government enacted more repressive legislation and this would lead to the Treason Trial.

[Increasing Violence] Sharpeville Massacre

PAC calls for a nationwide campaign against pass laws, marching to police stations without passes and demand to be arrested to overwhelm the state’s penal system. 20,000 people, running away, are shot at.

Reactions: Luthuli and thousands of others in Pretoria burn their passes as a statement on apartheid. The government declared State of Emergency and militarized African townships. There was now an international focus on apartheid and South Africa.

[Increasing violence] Decision to adopt the armed struggle

This was the reaction to the Sharpeville Massacre, recognizing that they had to now create underground structures and send representatives abroad. The ANC creates Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK and PAC launches POQO/Pure, both military wings of the anti-apartheid groups. Peaceful protestation was no longer enough.

Mandela’s speech addressed at Rivonia Trial.

[Official response] The Rivonia Trial

Many MK leaders including Walter Sisulu are arrested at a farmhouse near Rivonia. Evidence was found of sabotage targets, communist material, and Operation Mayibuye, a plan to overthrow the apartheid regime. Those incriminated are charged under the Suppression of Communism Act (1950), Saratoga Act (1962), and General Law Amendment (1963).

Rivonia Trial took away the leadership of the anti-apartheid movement not only for the MK, but the ANC as well. This started the mark of inactivity.

[Official response] Imprisonment of the ANC leadership

This was the silencing of the ANC as well as other anti-apartheid groups. They were warned of the consequences that could result from revolting. The Rivonia Trial had ceased activity for the next 10 years.

Key Individuals

Nelson Mandela: led the ANC, arrested during the Treason Trial, first president of South Africa

Albert Luthuli: Zulu, Christian chief. Joined the ANC and was one of the main leaders in the Defiance Campaign. He was removed from tribal chief after he refused to resig from the ANC. He issues “The Road to Freedom is via The Cross” and pro non-violent methods. Would become president of ANC and receives a Nobel Peace Prize in 1961.

Key Groups

African National Congress (ANC): established to protest racial discrimination and appeal for equal treatment before the law. Declared unlawful in 1960 but then unbanned in 1990.

The South African Communist Party (SACP): was a partner to the ANC. Formed in 1921 and was mainly white workers and socialists from Europe, but soon grew a predominantly black membership. Was targeted via the Suppression of Communism Act 1950. After ANC was banned, SACP played a key role in organizing MK.

Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK): The militaristic wing of the ANC. Resulted from the Sharpeville Massacre and marked the utilization of violence in change.