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Natives Land Act
This Act limited the amount of land that black natives in South Africa, and also banned the exchange of land between blacks and whites in the country. This Act is significant because it was the first of a long series of segregation laws that ultimately led to full-fledged apartheid. -
Mines and Works Amendment
This amendment worked to prevent Africans from working in mines and other places, which limited the number of places where Africans could work. This is significant because it paved the way to the unemployment epidemic of native Africans and other blacks in South Africa for the remaining duration of apartheid. It also secured the authority of whites in business endeavors like diamond and gold mining. -
Election of 1948
This election resulted in the rise of the National Party, led by D.F. Malan. This particular election was significant because it secured the National Party's grip on the country, and is often cited as the official beginning of apartheid. -
Immorality Amendment Act
This act was an amendment to previous legislation and officially banned all interracial extra-marital affairs. This was significant because it demonstrates just how far the National Party was willing to go to divide people of different races by regulating things that weren't even significant issues. -
Group Areas Act
This legislation declared that cities and city centers were exclusively for white people, and that Bantus were not allowed in certain areas. This legislation was important because truly embodied the overall goal of the apartheid strategy, becoming known as the "essence of apartheid". -
Population Registration Act
This act introduced the National Population Registry, which classified (and ranked) all South African citizens based on their race. The Registry divided races into 3 categories: Whites, Colored people (including Indians, Asians, etc.) in the middle, and Bantus (Native Africans). This event was significant because it served as part of the foundation for apartheid, and for later legislation. -
Natives Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents Act
This act required that all citizens of South Africa (especially Bantus) carry around a 96-page booklet that included all of their personal information. This act was significant because it was created as a means to get black natives arrested more often; one could be arrested for simply not having his papers with him. -
Reservation of Separate Amenities Act
This legislation served to segregate amenities such as restaurants, movie theaters, parks, hospitals, swimming pools, etc. This was significant because it affected everyday South African life more than ever before, and is more reminiscent of the segregation that was seen in the United States during the Civil Rights Era. -
Bantu Education Act
Under this act, schools became segregated through the requirement that each school was only allowed to admit students of one race. This meant that some schools became entirely white while others became entirely black. This often lead to white students learning more advanced subjects at all-white schools and blacks sometimes barely learning basic English at all-black schools. This is significant because it drastically reduced the ability for black to be successful in South Africa. -
Natives Resettlement Act
This legislation mandated the eviction of black from "black spots" in various cities. This included the destruction of Sophiatown, a black area of Johannesburg. This act was significant because it served as the beginning of an ultimate effort to permanently separate blacks from whites in South Africa. -
Group Areas Development Act
This act relocated black natives to various overcrowded reserves known as "Bantustans". This was significant because it represented the full and final separation of blacks from whites in South Africa. -
Colored Persons Communal Reserves Act
This act reorganized the overcrowded Bantustans into more formal rural reserves, similar to those of the American Indian reserves in the United States. This act was significant because it finalized the division between blacks and whites during apartheid South Africa.
