Rights and Protest: South Africa Apartheid

Group Areas Act (1950)

Removing non-whites from inner city areas, hence these were "white- only" areas

Pass Laws Act (1952)

Non-whites were now required to carry always with them Booklets.

Booklets

It contained the person employment record, tax payments, encounters with the police, race classification

Population Registration Act (1950)

required that each inhabitant of South Africa to be classified and registered in accordance with his or her racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949)

Made it illegal for people of different races to marry

Immorality Act (1950)

Prohibited all sexual relations between whites and non-whites.

Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953)

Strict segregation by race of all public amenities.

Group areas development Act (1955)

It armed the government with bureaucratic power to enforce the Group Areas Act. Enabling the state to acquire property in designated areas and reserving prime land for Whites

Natives Laws Amendment Act (1952)

Allowed blacks to still live in a city only if they had been borned and employed for more than 15 years or been continous employed

Bantu Education Act (1953)

-Schools were segregated and the government controled the education

-Non-white schools had less resources than white schools and were in poorer conditions

-Black students were taught about tribal identity and culture

Bantu Authorities Act 1951

An act in South Africa which created homelands for the nonwhites to live in.

Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act 1959

relabeled the reserves as Bantustans and start developing them as self-governing state

Why did the Malan Government created the Bantustans?

Receive cheap labor from Bantus

Commisioner-general had no real power and was chosen by South Africa government

no consider non-whites south african citizens.

Defiance Campaign 1952

Designed to apply pressure on the government and force it into repealing apartheid legislation and negotiating with the ANC

Methods of Defiance Campaign

-Civil disobedience: purposely breaking the law in public

- Aiming for a moral victory and highlight apartheid around the world

-overwhelm public authorities: police, courts, prisons

-involve other groups: coloured and indians

Grand Apartheid

The second stage of the Apartheid era (1960s-70s)

Main goal: the complete territorial segregation of South Africa.

Petty Apartheid

The first stage of the Apartheid era 18948-59)

Main goal: ensure the complete domination of the white ethnic over the blacks

Sucess of Defiance Campaign

1st time ANC leads a national campaign

Mass movement and coalition of groups

ANC’s profile grew

Failure of Defiance Campaign

None of the Acts were changed

government never negotiated

whites became scare and NP won next elections

Why the defiance campaign in 1952?

-Needed responde for the quick advance of the apartheid legislation

-Government rejected negotation with ANC

-ANC risked to lose crediability

-Anniversary of the first white establishment in South Africa

Congress of the People (COP) 1955

organization that was created to make a united front against apartheid

draft freedom charter

expand memeberships and broaden social base

working with other parties

Freedom Charter 1955

Announced at a mass meeting of the COP at a football field in Kliptown

Documents with political goals of the congress movement as well as the democratic aspirations

Limitation of bus Boycott

not initiated by liberation movements

hard to organize

depends on bus companies

Alexandra Bus Boycott (1957)

Blacks from the Alexandra suburb of Johannesburg refused to pay the 20% increase in bus fares and instead chose to walk or cycle to work each day.

the white community and white media supported the boycott.

lasted 12 weeks

Ultimately the government backed down

Sharpeville Massacre (1960)

demostrators outside a police station were demontrating against pass law and the police opened fire. 69 killed

Origins of Shaperville

Anti-pass campaign led by PAC

Consequences of Shaperville Massacre

state of emergency declared

thousand of ANC and PAC leaders arrested

International attention

ANC and PAC were banned

Rivonia Trial (1963-64)

Trials in which leaders of the ANC were trialed.

Trials were politized and an international campaign against the trials was formed

African National Congress (ANC)

Dominant force in the African nationalist opposition to the apartheid system.

Funded in 1912

Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)

Armed wing of the African National Congress established in 1961

"fear of the nation"

MK operations

-sabotage phase(first phase):destroying high-value installations

-guerrillas campaigns(second phase): mass political agitation and strike action in the cities

second phase was never reached

Nelson Mandela

Joined ANC in 1944 and created a young wing with Sisulu and Lambede.

Treason Trials put him in the spotlight as the real leading figure.

Rivonia Trials improsioned him for 27 years.

Leader of ANC in 1991

Albert Luthili

general president of ANC

created defiance campaign

Pan African Congress (PAC)

young wing from the ANC that breakaway,

rejected multi-racialism, “Africa for the Africans”

lead the anti-pass campaign