Apartheid in South Africa: KS3 History Explained

Apartheid was a system of legally enforced racial segregation in South Africa that lasted from 1948 to 1994. Under apartheid, the white minority government separated people by race, denied Black South Africans basic rights, and brutally suppressed resistance — until international pressure, mass protest, and internal political change finally dismantled it.

What does "apartheid" mean and how did it begin?

The word apartheid is Afrikaans for "separateness." South Africa had practised racial discrimination long before 1948, but the election victory of the Afrikaner National Party in May 1948 turned informal discrimination into comprehensive law.

The National Party under Daniel François Malan won the election on an explicitly pro-apartheid platform. Within two years, a framework of new legislation had transformed South African society.

The pass law system was particularly humiliating: Black South Africans could not enter "white areas" — which included most cities, parks, hospitals, and beaches — without a valid pass. The enforcement of pass laws led to hundreds of thousands of arrests every year.

What was daily life like under apartheid?

The experience of apartheid depended entirely on which racial category the government assigned you to. For white South Africans — roughly 20 per cent of the population — the system provided privilege: good schools, well-funded hospitals, reserved jobs, comfortable suburbs.

For the 80 per cent who were not classified white, apartheid meant a life of legal subordination. Black South Africans were assigned to designated "homelands" (called Bantustans) — artificially created territories that covered only 13 per cent of South Africa's land despite housing the majority of its people. Moving outside a homeland to find work required a passbook stamped by a white employer. Families were routinely split apart.

Education under the Bantu Education Act was designed, as its architect Hendrik Verwoerd stated, to prepare Black pupils only for manual labour — "there is no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour." The historian's task is to read such statements as primary sources: they reveal what the architects of apartheid believed and intended.

Who resisted apartheid and how?

The African National Congress (ANC), founded in 1912, was the principal organisation opposing apartheid. Its Youth League, established in 1944 by Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu, pushed the ANC towards mass action — strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience.

The ANC's Defiance Campaign of 1952 — modelled partly on Gandhi's earlier protests — involved deliberately breaking unjust laws and accepting arrest. More than 8,000 volunteers were arrested. The government responded by extending powers of detention.

The Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960 was a turning point. Police opened fire on a crowd of around 20,000 people peacefully protesting against pass laws at Sharpeville township; 69 people were killed, most shot in the back as they fled. The massacre shocked international opinion and led the UN Security Council to condemn apartheid for the first time. South Africa was expelled from the Commonwealth in 1961.

After Sharpeville, the government banned the ANC. Mandela helped form the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), which began sabotage operations against infrastructure. In 1964, Mandela and other ANC leaders were convicted at the Rivonia Trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela would remain on Robben Island for 18 of the 27 years he spent in prison.

The Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976 was another defining moment. Thousands of Black schoolchildren took to the streets to protest against a government decree requiring subjects to be taught in Afrikaans — the language of the oppressor, as many saw it. Police opened fire; the number killed is estimated at 176, though the true toll may be higher. The photograph of 13-year-old Hector Pieterson, shot dead and carried by a classmate, became one of the most powerful images of the apartheid era.

What role did the international community play?

International pressure grew steadily through the 1970s and 1980s. South Africa was banned from the Olympic Games from 1964. The United Nations imposed an arms embargo in 1977. A growing global boycott movement targeted South African goods, culture, and sport.

In Britain, the Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigned vigorously from 1959 onwards, and the debate over sporting links with South Africa — particularly cricket and rugby — was fierce. The "Stop the Tour" campaign of 1969–70 forced the cancellation of a South African cricket tour. Disinvestment campaigns pressured British and American companies to withdraw from South Africa.

The South African government, under P.W. Botha in the 1980s, attempted limited reforms — allowing some Black trade unions, repealing some "petty apartheid" laws — while continuing to crush political opposition with states of emergency and widespread detention without trial. The reforms satisfied no one and intensified resistance.

How did apartheid end?

By the late 1980s, a combination of factors made apartheid's continuation untenable: economic stagnation caused partly by sanctions, sustained internal resistance, a loss of support even within the white community, and the ending of Cold War pressures that had led the US to tolerate South Africa as an anti-communist ally.

F.W. de Klerk, who became state president in 1989, recognised that change was necessary. On 2 February 1990 he unbanned the ANC and other political organisations. Nine days later, on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Verster Prison after 27 years.

Negotiations between the ANC and the government led to South Africa's first democratic elections on 27 April 1994. The ANC won an overwhelming majority. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president on 10 May 1994.

Frequently asked questions

What was life like for Black South Africans under apartheid?

Black South Africans faced comprehensive legal discrimination at every stage of life. They were assigned to inferior schools under the Bantu Education Act, directed into low-wage manual employment, confined to "homelands" and townships, required to carry passbooks at all times, and banned from most public spaces reserved for white South Africans. Resistance was met with detention without trial, torture, and sometimes death. The system was not just unjust — it was designed to be, in the words of its architects, permanent.

Who was Nelson Mandela?

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) was a lawyer, ANC leader, and co-founder of its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. Convicted of sabotage at the Rivonia Trial in 1964, he was imprisoned for 27 years, mostly on Robben Island. He became a global symbol of resistance to apartheid. After his release in 1990 he led negotiations with the government and became South Africa's first democratically elected president in 1994, serving until 1999.

What was the significance of the Sharpeville massacre?

The Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 changed both the trajectory of anti-apartheid resistance and international attitudes towards South Africa. The killing of 69 unarmed protesters outraged the world, led to South Africa's expulsion from the Commonwealth in 1961, and convinced ANC leaders including Mandela that peaceful protest alone was insufficient. It also prompted the government to ban the ANC, driving opposition underground and radicalising the movement.

What were the Bantustans?

Bantustans (or "homelands") were areas designated by the apartheid government as the supposed "national homelands" of different Black ethnic groups. Ten were created. They covered only 13 per cent of South Africa's land area despite being intended to absorb 75 per cent of the population. They had poor infrastructure, little economic activity, and were deliberately designed to remove Black South Africans from citizenship of South Africa itself — the government claimed Bantustans were independent states, even though no other country recognised them. They were abolished in 1994.

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