Major Events of the Apartheid
1948 - Afrikaner National Party Enacts ApartheidThe Afrikaner National Party won the general election in 1948. The Representation of Natives Act in 1936 had undermined the political rights of black South Africans, allowing them to only vote for white representatives for their regions, who would then vote in elections. The National Party’s slogan of “apartheid” helped them gain the majority of votes from white Africans and the white representatives. The party immediately began putting policies and acts into place that would severely restrict black rights and promote segregation of the races. Two of these acts were the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act, classifying South Africans into racial groups and relocating them to communities set aside for each race..
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1960 - Sharpeville MassacreA group of protestors associated with the Pan-African Congress (PAC, affiliated with the ANC) went to a Sharpesville police station without their passes, using arrest as a form of resistance. The protestor’s refusal to carry their books caused altercations with the police to ensue, starting a riot. About 70 blacks were killed during the riot, and even more were left injured. The Sharpesville Massacre led to the creation of military wings of the PAC and ANC, the ANC’s being founded by Nelson Mandela, to help achieve their goals. The government of South Africa responded to this by banning the ANC and PAC, resulting in many resistance leaders being imprisoned or executed.
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1989 - F.W. de Klerk Succeeds P.W. BothaP.W. Botha suffered a stroke in 1989, making him unfit for office and causing him to resign. The National Party, with pressure from the international community to make reforms in their policies, elected F.W. de Klerk as president of the party. De Klerk began making substantial changes to laws and policies that the government had previously been hesitant to change. He repealed the Population Registration Act, repealed the ban on the PAC and ANC, freed imprisoned anti-apartheid leaders, and repealed most legislation that formed the legal basis for apartheid. De Klerk began working with Nelson Mandela to create a new constitution that gave rights back to the black majority.
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