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Apartheid Timeline
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The Founding of the ANC
The African National Congress is the main fraternal black political power in black Africa and the oldest. The efforts toward freedom and self determination in South Africa has a long history, going back to the days when the African people fought with spears against the British and Boer colonizers. The African National Congress is the major force in Africa that God has used the keep the spirit of resistance against racial hatred and imperialism alive. Liberation and deliverance is a mighty act fr -
The Defiance Campaign
The Defiance Campaign in 1952 was the first large-scale, multi-racial political mobilization against apartheid laws under a common leadership – by the African National Congress, South African Indian Congress, and the Coloured People’s Congress. More than 8,000 trained volunteers went to jail for “defying unjust laws,” laws that had grown worse since the National Party came to power in 1948. Volunteers were jailed for failing to carry passes, violating the curfew on Africans, and entering locatio -
The Nobel Peace Prize is won by Albert Luthuli
In years gone by, some of the greatest men of our century have stood here to receive this award: men whose names and deeds have enriched the pages of human history, men whom future generations will regard as having shaped the world of our time. No one could be left unmoved at being plucked from the village of Groutville—a name many of you have never heard before and which does not even feature on many maps—to be plucked from banishment in a rural backwater, to be lifted out of the narrow confine -
The Sharpevill Massacre
On 21 March 1960 at least 180 black Africans were injured (there are claims of as many as 300) and 69 killed when South African police opened fire on approximately 300 demonstrators, who were protesting against the pass laws, at the township of Sharpeville, near Vereeniging in the Transvaal. In similar demonstrations at the police station in Vanderbijlpark, another person was shot. Later that day at Langa, a township outside Cape Town, police baton charged and fired tear gas at the gathered prot -
The Forming of the Spear of Nation
was a idea that was created when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. -
Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison
was initially tried and sentenced to prison for encouraging black South Africans to go on strike and for illegally leaving South Africa. For most of his life Mandela fought for an end to apartheid (a system of segregation based on race that gave advantages to whites while restricting blacks to labor reserves) in South Africa. He joined the African National Congress (ANC), an organization that promotes the interests of black South Africans, and participated in nonviolent protests, such as work st -
The Soweto Uprising
The Soweto riots of 1976 were the most brutal and violent riots that had taken place against the South African apartheid administration. It was also amazing in how far and how fast it spread. Its significance would go beyond the violence on the streets. The police actions during the riots would be part of what instigated a world-wide boycott of South African produce and signalled the increased militancy of the black population of South Africa. During a reorganisation of the Bantu Education Depa -
Steve Biko dies in police custody
Mr Biko died in hospital in Pretoria. The government minister of Justice and Police, James Kruger, stated that Mr Biko had been transferred 740 miles (1,191 km) from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria for medical attention following a seven-day hunger strike. Mr Biko had been in custody since 18 August when he was arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act. He is the 20th person to die in custody during the past 18 months. South African Embassy confirmed that he died from being beaten from the police -
The Nobel Peace Prize is won by Desmond Tutu
Bishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal. His father was a teacher, and he himself was educated at Johannesburg Bantu High School. After leaving school he trained first as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College and in 1954 he graduated from the University of South Africa. After three years as a high school teacher he began to study theology, being ordained as a priest in 1960. The years 1962-66 were devoted to further theological study in England leading up to a Master o -
Nelson Mandela is released from prison
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Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa
Mandela, who achieved a law degree in 1942, began his political career in 1950. His trip to becoming South Africa’s president was thus 44 years in the making. Throughout the decade, he worked tirelessly against apartheid, segregation and racism in South Africa. In 1952, Mandela was elected deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC). As an elected official, he fought to bureaucratically eradicate apartheid. -
The Founding of the Congress Youth League
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress. It was formed in 1944 by members of the ANC who believed in African Nationalism, and wanted to follow an active policy focused on the mobilisation of the masses.