Apartheid
Apartheid — an [[afrikaans|Afrikaans]] word meaning "apartness" that became a global synonym for racial oppression — was a system of institutionalized racial segregation and white supremacy enforced in [[south-africa|South Africa]] from 1948 to 1991. It classified every citizen by race and reserved political power, economic opportunity, and the vast majority of land for the white minority, roughly 15% of the population. It was — in the judgment of the [[united-nations|United Nations]] General Assembly — racism made into comprehensive, binding law, a system so thorough that it regulated where you could live, work, eat, learn, love, and die.
The System
The apartheid state was built on obsessive classification. The [[population-registration-act|Population Registration Act]] of 1950 sorted every citizen by race, and the [[group-areas-act|Group Areas Act]] of the same year assigned each of these racial groups to specific geographic zones, a cartographic expression of white supremacy that physically restructured the country's human geography. Black South Africans were forcibly removed from their homes — over three and a half million people displaced across three decades — and restricted to overcrowded, inferior areas with few services or opportunities. The deliberately inferior education system, created by the [[bantu-education-act|Bantu Education Act]] of 1953, was designed to train Black students for nothing beyond manual labor, as its architect [[hendrik-verwoerd|Hendrik Verwoerd]] stated openly: "There is no place for the Black man in the European community above certain forms of labour". Pass laws required all Black South Africans to carry identification — documents called [[dompas|"dompas"]], literally "dumb pass" — at all times and restricted their movement into white areas. The system created so-called "[[bantustans|Bantustans]]," nominally independent homelands that served primarily as labor reserves — workers permitted to enter white South Africa to work and sent back when no longer needed, comprising a mere 13% of the country's land for roughly 75% of its population who were not white.
The Resistance
Resistance to apartheid was constant and took many forms, from petitions to armed struggle. The [[african-national-congress|African National Congress]], founded in 1912, led the organized opposition for decades, evolving from a polite lobbying group into a revolutionary movement as each peaceful avenue was closed off. The 1952 [[defiance-campaign|Defiance Campaign]] organized mass civil disobedience, and the [[freedom-charter|Freedom Charter]] of 1955 declared — in what became the movement's most famous words — that "[[south-africa|South Africa]] belongs to all who live in it, Black and White" — a vision of nonracial democracy that the apartheid state considered treasonous. [[nelson-mandela|Nelson Mandela]] and other [[african-national-congress|ANC]] leaders turned to armed resistance after the movement was banned, concluding that nonviolence against such overwhelming state violence could no longer serve as the sole strategy. The pivotal [[sharpeville-massacre|Sharpeville massacre]] of March 21, 1960, in which police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed pass-law protesters, killed sixty-nine unarmed Black protesters and shocked the watching world. [[steve-biko|Steve Biko]], who founded the [[black-consciousness-movement|Black Consciousness Movement]] and argued that Black South Africans must first liberate their own minds, was killed in police custody in 1977, his death becoming one of the most galvanizing moments of the anti-apartheid struggle. The explosive [[soweto-uprising|Soweto Uprising]] of June 1976, in which students protested mandatory [[afrikaans|Afrikaans]] instruction in schools, was met with police gunfire that killed hundreds of mostly young people — at least 176 — and deepened global outrage against the regime. International economic sanctions and cultural boycotts — driven by a worldwide solidarity movement — isolated [[south-africa|South Africa]] and proved that sustained international pressure could, over decades, help topple even the most entrenched systems of oppression.
The End
[[f-w-de-klerk|F.W. de Klerk]], who became president in 1989, released [[nelson-mandela|Nelson Mandela]] from twenty-seven years in prison on February 11, 1990 and began the painstaking negotiations for a democratic transition, recognizing — as he later stated — that apartheid could not be reformed but had to end entirely. The first fully democratic elections were held on April 27, 1994, a day when [[nelson-mandela|Mandela]] voted for the first time at age seventy-five. [[nelson-mandela|Mandela]] became South Africa's first Black president. The [[truth-and-reconciliation-commission|Truth and Reconciliation Commission]], chaired by [[desmond-tutu|Archbishop Desmond Tutu]], chose a remarkable path — accountability over retributive punishment, granting full amnesty to — in hearings broadcast live on national television — perpetrators who confessed their crimes, an imperfect approach that left many victims feeling justice was denied but that allowed a deeply wounded nation to confront its past. South Africa — against all predictions — replaced a system that defined people by race with a democratic constitution that — despite the immense challenges of poverty, inequality, and institutional racism that remained — defined them by their rights.