Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa

liberation movements began to emerge

• African National Congress (ANC) - leader was Nelson Mandela

  • initially attempted to use the law and civil disobedience but then had to resort to acts of violence in response to the South African government’s violence

• Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC)

  • split from the ANC because ANC did not focus specifically on blacks, but also worked to improve the situation of the other non-white groups discriminated against

On March 21, 1960, they held a mass non-violent demonstration

• but the government started to fire shots, killing and injuring some protesters

• the government afterwards claimed that the protesters had been becoming aggressive

• very soon, the government passed laws outlawing the liberation movements and imprisoning their leaders

The PAC and ANC resorted to violence and other terrorist tactics

Mandela was imprisoned, and eventually apartheid declined, with the ANC winning the first interracial election, leading Mandela to become the first black president of South Africa