Apartheid in South Africa

“Apartheid […] was a system of […] racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s.” The black South Africans were ruled by the white government, which was actually the minority of the population. That white government passed many laws to oppress and contain the black people, for example the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act in 1949, which made it impossible for black people to have a relationship with white people.
But the most significant law was the Population Registration Act that was passed in 1950. It “classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups […]: ‘Black’, ‘White’, ‘Coloured’, and ‘Indian’.” “White citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then black Africans.” As a consequence of that law, 3.5 million black Africans were forced to leave their homes and move into segregated neighbourhoods between 1960 and 1983. There, black people for instance had less medical supply and less education. Because of that massive oppression the blacks were subjected to, the resistance to apartheid became increasingly militant during the 1970s and 1980s.

Finally, the apartheid system was ended through a series of negotiations between the governing National Party and the African National Congress in the time between 1990 and 1993, but the “economic and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day”.

The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa which was founded on 8 January 1912 by John Langalibalele Dube in Bloemfontein.

Its mission is to bring all Africans together as one people and to defend their rights and freedom. Especially, the ANC supported the black South Africans in their resistance to the apartheid system. It actually attempted to use non-violent protests to end apartheid, but there has been a military wing of the ANC and the Sharpville massacre happened in 1960.

Since the election of Nelson Mandela in the first free election in 1994, it has always been re-elected and is on power until today.