Apartheid in South Africa: Discrimination, Resistance, and Repression (1948–1964)

Comprehensive practice flashcards detailing key terminology, apartheid legislation, political milestones, anti-apartheid campaigns, and landmark legal trials in South Africa between 1948 and 1964.

Petty apartheid

The earlier stage of apartheid associated with prime ministers D.F. Malan and J.G. Strijdom, also termed baasskap ('boss rule'), aimed at securing complete White economic and political domination through day-to-day repressive and fussy regulations.

Grand apartheid

The second phase of apartheid initiated by H.F. Verwoerd in the late 1950s, aimed at the complete territorial segregation of South Africa into separate, theoretically independent homelands for each African ethnic group.

Population Registration Act of 1950

A foundational apartheid law that classified every South African biologically into distinct racial categories (White, Coloured, or Bantu) and compiled these classifications into an official national population register.

Race Classification Board

The official body established under the Population Registration Act responsible for defining racial sub-categories and adjudicating disputed racial classifications through arbitrary tests.

Pencil test

An arbitrary and humiliating evaluation used by the Race Classification Board in which a pencil was inserted into an individual's hair; if it did not fall out, the hair was judged too curly for the person to be classified as White.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949

The first major legislative act passed by the National Party government, making it illegal for White South Africans to marry members of any other racial group.

Immorality Act of 1950

Legislation that outlawed all extra-marital sexual relations between Whites and non-Whites, enforced through intrusive police raids aimed at protecting the perceived purity of the White race.

Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953

A law providing for the strict racial segregation of all public facilities and amenities, removing the requirement that facilities provided for different races had to be equal in quality.

Pass Laws Act of 1952

Formally titled the Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act, this law replaced older passes with detailed 96-page 'reference books' that Africans were required by law to carry at all times.

Group Areas Act of 1950

Referred to by Malan as the 'essence of apartheid,' this legislation brought about total residential segregation in urban areas by declaring city centres and inner suburbs Whites-only and relocating non-Whites to outlying townships.

Sauer Report (1947)

An official National Party commission report that concluded African people were inherently rural and belonged in native reserves, asserting their urban presence should be tolerated solely when economically beneficial to Whites.

Sophiatown

A vibrant, predominantly Black suburb west of Johannesburg where Africans possessed pre-1913 freehold rights, razed by the government starting in 1955 under the Western Areas Removal Scheme and replaced by the Afrikaner suburb Triomf.

Matchbox houses

Cramped, standardized township homes built in monotonous rows with no indoor plumbing or running water, designed to house between 7 and 14 people during forced resettlements in areas like Soweto.

Native Laws Amendment Act of 1952

A law severely limiting Africans' right to permanent urban residence, requiring that an individual be born in a city and work continuously for 15 years, or have 10 years of unbroken employment, to reside there legally.

Bantu Education Act of 1953

Legislation that transferred African schooling to the Native Affairs Department and created an inferior curriculum devoid of academic content, tailored specifically to prepare Black youths for domestic and manual labour.

Extension of University Education Act of 1959

An act ending the admission of non-White students into open universities like Cape Town and Witwatersrand, establishing strictly segregated higher education facilities based on race and African tribal identity.

Bantu Authorities Act of 1951

An act that established regional, tribal-based authorities for Africans in the native reserves and abolished the elected, national Natives Representative Council.

Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959

Grand apartheid legislation dividing Africans into distinct ethnic groupings headed by White commissioners-general, aiming for their eventual political independence in homelands while stripping indirect African representation in Parliament.

Transkei

The first native reserve converted into a self-governing Bantustan for the Xhosa in 1963, placed under the leadership of Chief Kaiser Matanzima and given nominal 'independence' in 1976.

Programme of Action (1949)

A platform formulated by the ANC Youth League and adopted as official party policy in 1949, advocating mass confrontation, boycotts, strikes, and non-violent civil disobedience against White minority rule.

Defiance Campaign of 1952

A coordinated non-violent civil disobedience movement launched by the ANC, SAIC, and FRAC on 26 June 1952, in which volunteers deliberately breached six unjust apartheid laws to flood the judicial system.

Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1953

Security legislation passed by the government to quell the Defiance Campaign, introducing longer prison sentences and whipping as legal punishments for offenses committed by way of protest.

Congress Alliance

A multiracial anti-apartheid coalition founded in 1954 comprising the ANC, the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the Coloured People's Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats, and SACTU.

Congress of the People (COP)

A mass convention of 2,844 delegates held on 25–26 June 1955 at Kliptown, Johannesburg, which drafted and officially proclaimed the Freedom Charter.

Freedom Charter

A landmark democratic manifesto adopted at the Congress of the People in 1955, proclaiming that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White, and advocating equal human rights, land redistribution, and public ownership of mines and banks.

Treason Trial (1956–1961)

A five-year legal proceeding in which 156 leaders of the Congress Alliance were accused of high treason and conspiracy to overthrow the state by force using the Freedom Charter; all were ultimately acquitted.

Alexandra bus boycott (1957)

A 12-week transport strike by roughly 70,000 African commuters who walked up to 20 miles daily under the slogan Azikhwelwa! after PUTCO raised fares by one penny, ending when the government subsidized bus fares.

Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)

An Africanist breakaway group formed in 1959 by Robert Sobukwe and others from the ANC, rejecting multiracial collaboration in favour of Black self-reliance and the slogan 'Africa for the Africans.'

Sharpeville massacre (1960)

The police shooting of unarmed demonstrators outside a police station near Vereeniging on 21 March 1960, which resulted in 69 deaths and 186 injuries and prompted the banning of the ANC and PAC.

Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)

The armed wing of the ANC, meaning 'Spear of the Nation,' founded in 1961 by Nelson Mandela and other leaders to conduct targeted sabotage operations against state property and economic infrastructure.

Operation Mayibuye

A secret strategy document detailing plans for an MK guerrilla warfare insurgency launched from rural clandestine bases, discovered by police during the 1963 raid on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia.

Rivonia Trial (1963–1964)

The prosecution of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and other MK leaders under the Sabotage Act of 1962, concluding with eight defendants being sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.

Black Consciousness Movement (BCM)

A movement founded by Steve Biko in the late 1960s to foster Black pride, psychological liberation, and self-reliance under the slogan 'Black is beautiful,' countering the subjugation created by Bantu education.