Apartheid

By Ava KB
  • Period: to

    Pass laws enacted

    Pass laws were enacted for the purpose of ensuring a reliable supply of cheap, docile African labor for the gold and diamond mines
  • South Africa Gains Independence

    Great Britain gave South Africa independence
  • Apartheid becomes official law

    Races segregated
  • Period: to

    Group Areas Act

    mandated residential segregation throughout the country; large-scale removals of Africans, Indians, and Coloureds were carried out
  • More rigid pass law enacted

    government enacts an even more rigid law that required all African males over the age of 16 to carry a “reference book” containing personal information and employment history
  • Period: to

    Protests against pass laws

    Defiance Campaign - 1952–1954 | women’s protest in Pretoria - 1956 | burning of passes at the police station in Sharpeville - 1960
  • Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act

    Created the Bantustans; abolished indirect representation of blacks in Pretoria and divided Africans into ten ethnically discrete groups
  • Period: to

    3.5 Million South Africans Moved

    apartheid government forcibly moves 3.5 million black South Africans in one of the largest mass removals of people in modern history
  • Nelson Mandela Arrested

    Sentenced to life for bombing government targets after peacefully standing up against apartheid
  • Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act

    declared all Africans were citizens of “homelands,” rather than of South Africa itself
  • Period: to

    Law Violators Deported

    Africans found in violation of past laws were stripped of citizenship and deported to poverty-stricken rural “homelands”
  • Period: to

    4 Homelands Declared Independent

    Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana, and Ciskei declared “independent” by Pretoria; 8 million Africans lose citizenship ; not recognized by other countries
  • Africans Resist Moving From Crossroads

    lasts four days; Africans resisted being moved from Crossroads to the new government-run Khayelitsha township farther away
  • Pass Laws Repealed

    increasingly expensive and ineffective; led to more than 17 million arrests before being repealed
  • South African Citizenship Restored

    South African citizenship restored to people who were born outside the four “independent” homelands
  • Nelson Mandela Pardoned

    President deKlerk pardons Nelson Mandela; he becomes ANC president and negotiates the end of apartheid
  • Mandela Elected President

    Elected first black president of South Africa; served one term then retired from politics
  • Homelands Reabsorbed

    homelands reabsorbed into South Africa
  • Nelson Mandela passes away