The Legalization Of Apartheid: A Historical Turning Point

Apartheid, meaning apartness in Afrikaans, was a system of legislation that upheld segregation against non-white citizens of South Africa. After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation. Apartheid became law in 1950 with the Population Registration Act, which classified South Africans by race, including Bantu (Black Africans), Coloured (mixed race) and white. A fourth category, Asian (meaning Indian and Pakistani), was later added.

Population Registration Act of 1950

The Population Registration Act of 1950 was one of the first legislative steps taken to enforce apartheid in South Africa. The law required that every South African be classified and registered according to their race. There were initially three basic classifications: Black, White, and Coloured (mixed). Indians (South Asians from the former British India and their descendants) were later added as a separate category, as they were seen as having "no historical right to the country".

The act was enforced with humiliating tests that determined a person's race based on perceived linguistic and physical characteristics. The following criteria were used to separate Coloured people from White people:

• Characteristics of the person's head hair
• Characteristics of the person's other hair
• Home language and especially the knowledge of Afrikaans
• Area where the person lives
• The person's friends
• Eating and drinking habits
• Socioeconomic status

An Office for Race Classification was set up to oversee the classification process. If authorities were unsure about someone's race, they would use the "pencil test" – a pencil was pushed into the person's hair, and if it stayed in place, the hair was deemed frizzy, and the person was classified as Coloured.

The act worked in tandem with other apartheid laws. Under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, it was illegal for a White person to marry someone of another race. The Immorality Amendment Act of 1950 made it a crime for a White person to have sexual intercourse with a person of another race.

The Population Registration Act was repealed by the South African Parliament on June 17, 1991. However, the racial categories it defined remain ingrained in South African culture and still form the basis of some official policies.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949

Apartheid, meaning "apartness" in Afrikaans, was a system of legislation that upheld segregation against non-white citizens of South Africa. After the

Immorality Amendment Act of 1950

Apartheid was a system of legislation that upheld segregation against non-white citizens of South Africa. After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, it began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation.

The Immorality Amendment Act of 1950 was one of the most controversial pieces of Apartheid legislation. It amended the Immorality Act of 1927, which prohibited extramarital sexual relations between whites and blacks, to forbid unmarried sexual intercourse between "Europeans" and anyone not "European". The prohibition was therefore extended to intercourse between white people and coloured or Asian people. Interracial marriages had already been banned in 1949 by the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act.

The Immorality Amendment Act criminalised adultery, attempted adultery, or related ‘immoral' acts such as sexual intercourse between White and Black people. A fundamental objective of the National Party, elected in 1948, was to protect whites’ mythical racial purity; therefore, ending whites’ involvement in heterosexual interracial sexual relationships was of paramount importance. The Immorality Amendment Act was rigorously enforced, and between 1950 and the repeal of the law in 1985, at least 19,000 people were fully prosecuted for violating the law, while thousands more were arrested without a trial.

The Immorality Amendment Act was part of a series of laws passed to establish the apartheid structure of government. By 1950, the government had banned marriages between whites and people of other races and prohibited sexual relations between Black and white South Africans. The Population Registration Act of 1950 provided the basic framework for apartheid by classifying all South Africans by race, including Bantu (Black Africans), Coloured (mixed race), and white. A fourth category, Asian (meaning Indian and Pakistani), was later added.

Apartheid laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. In 1991, the government of President F.W. de Klerk began to repeal most of the legislation that provided the basis for apartheid.

Group Areas Act of 1950

The Group Areas Act of 1950 was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the National Party government to enforce apartheid in South Africa. The Act was designed to enforce racial segregation in urban areas, by dividing neighbourhoods into 'group areas' where only people of a specific race were permitted to live. The Act was the culmination of decades of discriminatory policies aimed at limiting the property rights of non-white South Africans.

The Act designated four racial groups: whites, coloureds, Indians, and natives. It empowered the Governor-General to declare certain geographical areas for the exclusive occupation of specific racial groups. Once an area had been designated for sole occupation by certain racial groups, non-compliant residents had at least one year to leave, after which remaining in the area became a criminal offence, punishable by a fine and up to two years' imprisonment. The Act also applied to businesses, with racial designation based on the race of the individual with a controlling interest in the company.

The Group Areas Act was amended almost annually and was re-enacted in the Consolidation Acts of 1957 and 1966. It was eventually repealed in 1991, along with many other discriminatory laws, by the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act.

The Act had a devastating impact on the lives of non-white South Africans, breaking up families, friends, and communities. It led to the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of people, as they were displaced from their homes and forced to live in separate areas designated for their racial group. The Act also restricted the rights of non-whites to own property and operate businesses, as they were only permitted to acquire property and conduct business in their designated group areas.

The Group Areas Act was a cornerstone of apartheid policy and played a significant role in entrenching racial segregation and white supremacy in South Africa.

Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959

Apartheid, meaning "apartness" in Afrikaans, was a system of legislation that upheld segregation against non-white citizens of South Africa. The National Party, which came to power in 1948, immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation.

The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 was an important piece of South African apartheid legislation. The Act was designed to further the policy of "Grand Apartheid", meaning the permanent partition of South Africa into national "homelands" for each "people" or nation.

The Act recognised the existence of eight African ethnic groups based on their linguistic and cultural diversity. Each group was to have a Commissioner-General as an official representative of the South African government. The Commissioner-General was assigned to develop a homeland for each group, which would supposedly provide for the right to self-determination of the country's black population.

The Act also resulted in the abolition of parliamentary representation for black South Africans. Each black "nation" was to have a Commissioner-General, who was entrusted with the development of its assigned Homeland into a fully self-governing state. Blacks were expected to exercise their political rights in these Homeland enclave states, not in the remainder of South Africa, where white supremacy would continue.

The Act set up eight (later extended to ten) distinct "Bantu Homelands" out of the existing reserves, with each having a degree of self-government. The chief aim behind this act was to eventually grant independence to the homelands, thereby depriving Black South Africans of their citizenship and reducing the possibility that Black people would unify into one nationalist organisation.

Transkei was the first territory to benefit from the provision of this Act when the Transkei Self-Government Act and the Transkei Constitution Act were passed in 1963. In 1976, Transkei became the first independent homeland.

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