South Africa's Apartheid Era Population Registration Act

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South Africa's Population Registration Act No. 30 (commenced on July 7) was passed in 1950 and defined in clear terms who belonged to a particular race. Race was defined by physical appearance and the act required people to be identified and registered from birth as belonging to one of four distinct racial groups: White, Coloured, Bantu (Black African), and Other. It was one of the "pillars" of Apartheid. When the law was implemented, citizens were issued identity documents and race was reflected by the individual's Identity Number.

The Act was typified by humiliating tests which determined race through perceived linguistic and/or physical characteristics. The wording of the Act was imprecise, but it was applied with great enthusiasm:

A White person is one who is in appearance obviously white — and not generally accepted as Coloured — or who is generally accepted as White — and is not obviously Non-White, provided that a person shall not be classified as a White person if one of his natural parents has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu...
A Bantu is a person who is, or is generally accepted as, a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa...
A Coloured is a person who is not a White person or a Bantu ...

Racial Test

The following elements were used for determining the Coloureds from the Whites:

  • Facial features
  • Characteristics of the person's hair on their head
  • Characteristics of the person's other hair
  • Home language and the knowledge of Afrikaans
  • The area where the person lives
  • The person's friends
  • Eating and drinking habits
  • Socioeconomic status

The Pencil Test

If the authorities doubted the color of someone's skin, they would use a "pencil in hair test." A pencil was pushed in the hair, and if it remained in place without dropping, the hair was designated as frizzy hair and the person would then be classified as colored. If the pencil dropped out of the hair, the person would be deemed white.

Incorrect Determination

Many decisions were wrong, and families wound up being split and/or evicted for living in the wrong area. Hundreds of colored families were reclassified as white and in a handful of instances, Afrikaners were designated as colored. In addition, some Afrikaner parents abandoned children with frizzy hair or children with dark skin who were considered outcasts.

Other Apartheid Laws

The Population Registration Act No. 30 worked in conjunction with other laws passed under the apartheid system. 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 sex with someone from another race.

Repeal of The Population Registration Act

The South African Parliament repealed the act on June 17, 1991. However, the racial categories set forth by the act are still ingrained in the culture of South Africa. They also still underlie some of the official policies designed to remedy past economic inequalities.

"War Measures Continuation. Population Registration." South African History Online, June 22, 1950.

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Population Registration Act, No. 30

Population registration act, no. 30.

Introduction: Voted into South African law in 1950, the Population Registration Act, no. 30 was not repealed until 1991. All South African citizens were required to register according to racial characteristics; this classification then helped in the enforcement of other laws prohibiting mixed-race activities. The extracts reproduced here showcase the strictly apartheid nature of life in South Africa throughout much of the twentieth century.

the population registration act, no. 30, of 1950

2. There shall, as soon as practicable after the fixed date, be compiled by the Director and thereafter maintained by him, a register of the population of the Union….

5. (I) Ever person whose name is included in the register shall be classified by the Director as a white person, a coloured person or a native, as the case may be, and every coloured person and ever native whose name is so included shall be classified by the Director according to the ethnic or other group to which he belongs.

(2) The Governor-General may be proclamation in the Gazette prescribe and define the ethnic or other groups into which coloured person and natives shall be classified in terms of sub-section (I), and may in like manner amend or withdraw any such proclamation.

(3) If at any time it appears to the Director that the classification of a person in terms of sub-section (I) is incorrect, he may, subject to the provisions of sub-section (7) of section eleven and after giving notice to that person, and, if he is a minor, also to his guardian, specifying in which respect the classification is incorrect, and affording such person and such guardian (if any) an opportunity of being heard, alter the classification of that person in the register.

6. The Director shall assign an identity number to every person whose name is included in the register.

7. (I) There shall, in respect of every person whose name is included in the register, other than a native, be included in the register the following particulars and no other particulars whatsoever namely:

  • his full name, sex and ordinary place of residence;
  • his classification in terms of section five ;
  • the date and place of his birth;
  • his citizenship or nationality, and in the case of an alien, an indication of the fact that he is an alien;
  • his marital status;
  • in the case of a registered voter, the electoral division and polling district in which he is registered as a voter under the Electoral Consolidation Act, 1946 (Act No. 46 of 1946);
  • the date of his arrival in the Union, if not born in a part of South Africa included in the Union;
  • a recent photograph of himself, except in the case of a person who has not yet attained the age of sixteen years, or who has been admitted to the Union for a temporary purpose; and
  • his identity number.

(2) There shall in respect of every native whose name is included in the register, be included in the register the following particulars and no other particulars whatsoever, namely:

  • his full name, sex and the district in which he is ordinarily resident;
  • his citizenship or nationality, the ethnic or other group and the tribe to which he belongs;
  • the date, or if the date is not known, the year or reputed year, and the place, or if the place is not known, the district of his birth;
  • the year of his arrival in the Union, if not born in a part of South Africa included in the Union;
  • a recent photograph of himself in the case of a native who has not yet attained the age of sixteen years, and, in the case of a native who is not a South African citizen, his fingerprints; and

(3) Upon the death or permanent departure from the Union of a person whose name is included in the register, the date of his death or departure from the Union, as the case may be, shall be recorded in the register.

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Population Registration Act, 1950 Explained

Short Title:Population Registration Act, 1950
Long Title:Act to make provision for the compilation of a Register of the Population of the Union; for the issue of Identity Cards to persons whose names are included in the Register; and for matters incidental thereto.
Citation:Act No. 30 of 1950
Enacted By:
Assented By:Governor-General
Royal Assent:22 June 1950
Date Commenced:7 July 1950
Date Repealed:28 June 1991
Administered By:Minister of the Interior
Repealed By:
Status:repealed

The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid . [1] [2] [3] Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were largely determined by the group to which an individual belonged. There were three basic racial classifications under the law: Black, White and Coloured (mixed). Indians (that is, South Asians from the former British India , and their descendants) were later added as a separate classification as they were seen as having "no historical right to the country".

An Office for Race Classification was set up to overview the classification process. Classification into groups was carried out using criteria such as outer appearance, general acceptance and social standing. For example, it defined a "white person" as one who "in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person, or is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously a white person." Because some aspects of the profile were of a social nature, [2] reclassification was not uncommon, and a board was established to conduct that process. The following criteria were used for separating the coloured people from the white people: [2]

  • Characteristics of the person's head hair
  • Characteristics of the person's other hair
  • Skin colour
  • Facial features
  • Home language and especially the knowledge of Afrikaans
  • Area where the person lives, the person's friends and acquaintances
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Eating and drinking habits

This law worked in tandem with other laws passed as part of the apartheid system. Under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, it was illegal for a white person to marry a person of another race. With the enactment of the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, it also became a crime for a white person and a person of another race to have sexual intercourse.

Under the act, as amended, Coloureds and Indians were formally classified into various subgroups, including Cape Coloured , Malay , Griqua , Chinese , Indian , Other Asian and Other Coloured . [4] [5]

The South African Parliament repealed the act on 17 June 1991. However, the racial categories defined in the act remain ingrained in South African culture [6] [7] [8] [9] and they still form the basis of some official policies and statistics aimed at redressing past economic imbalances ( Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity). [8] [10] [11]

  • Demographics of South Africa
  • Pencil test
  • Urban apartheid

Notes and References

  • Web site: South African Demographic Health Survey . 1998. Department of Health. https://web.archive.org/web/20110726195853/http://www.doh.gov.za/facts/1998/sadhs98/chapter1.pdf. 26 July 2011. 9 March 2013.
  • Web site: Posel. Deborah. What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife . 2001. Michigan State University. 4 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305235727/http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/transformation/tran047/tran047005.pdf. 5 March 2016. live.
  • News: South African activist teacher gets education doctorate . 9 March 2013. Stanford News Service. 1991.
  • Web site: Valentine. Sue. An appalling 'science' . Sunday Times Heritage Project. The Times. 9 March 2013. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120423220247/http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/memorials/wc/RaceClassificationBoard/article.aspx?id=591128. 23 April 2012.
  • Book: Leach, Graham. South Africa : no easy path to peace . 1986. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London. 0710208480. 70 . registration. Population Registration Act, 1959 cape coloured.. 1. publ..
  • News: Rondganger. Lee. Being an African makes me who I am . 9 March 2013. IOL. 6 June 2006.
  • News: du Preez. Max. Are we all 'coloured'? . 9 March 2013. News24. 9 March 2011.
  • What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife . https://web.archive.org/web/20061108101109/http://www.transformation.und.ac.za/issue%2047/47%20posel1.pdf . 2006-11-08 . Transformation. 0258-7696 . 2001. Posel. Deborah. 50–74.
  • Book: Pillay. Kathryn. The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Indian Identity in South Africa. 2019. 77–92. 10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_9. 978-981-13-2897-8. free.
  • News: Lehohla. Pali. Debate over race and censuses not peculiar to SA . 5 May 2005. Business Report. 25 August 2013. Others pointed out that the repeal of the Population Registration Act in 1991 removed any legal basis for specifying 'race'. The Identification Act of 1997 makes no mention of race. On the other hand, the Employment Equity Act speaks of 'designated groups' being 'black people, women and people with disabilities'. The Act defines 'black' as referring to 'Africans, coloureds and Indians'. Apartheid and the racial identification which underpinned it explicitly linked race with differential access to resources and power. If the post-apartheid order was committed to remedying this, race would have to be included in surveys and censuses, so that progress in eradicating the consequences of apartheid could be measured and monitored. This was the reasoning that led to a 'self-identifying' question about 'race' or 'population group' in both the 1996 and 2001 population censuses, and in Statistics SA's household survey programme.. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20070814143522/http://www.statssa.gov.za/news_archive/05may2005_1.asp. 14 August 2007.
  • News: Davis. Rebecca. DA: We're not over race, but united we stand . 25 November 2013. Daily Maverick. 25 November 2013.

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Population Registration Act, 1950

The Population Registration Act (Act No. 30 of 1950) was a South African law which from the apartheid era which required every citizen and resident to be classified according to their race and ethnic group, and recorded in the population register. It was one of the foundations of legislative apartheid, with all the subsequent segregation legislation being based on the classification it established.

The act was published and came into force on 7 July 1950. It was repealed on 28 June 1991 by the Population Registration Act Repeal Act, 1991 .

This is the text as originally enacted and does not incorporate any amendments. A series of other versions incorporating amendments are also available on Wikisource.

To make provision for the compilation of a Register of the Population of the Union; for the issue of Identity Cards to persons whose names are included in the Register; and for matters incidental thereto.

1. In this Act, unless the context otherwise indicates—

2. There shall, as soon as practicable after the fixed date, be compiled by the Director and thereafter maintained by him, a register of the population of the Union.

3. The particulars required for the compilation of the register in respect of the population of the Union as at the fixed date shall be extracted by the Director from the forms and returns received by him under the Census Act, 1910 (Act No. 2 of 1910), in connection with the census taken on the fixed date and from such other records as may be available to the Director.

4. There shall be included in the register, in three separate parts thereof, the names of—

5. (1) Every person whose name is included in the register shall be classified by the Director as a white person, a coloured person or a native, as the case may be, and every coloured person and every native whose name is so included shall be classified by the Director according to the ethnic or other group to which he belongs.

(2) The Governor-General may by proclamation in the Gazette prescribe and define the ethnic or other groups into which coloured persons and natives shall be classified in terms of sub-section (1), and may in like manner amend or withdraw any such proclamation.

(3) If at any time it appears to the Director that the classification of a person in terms of sub-section (1) is incorrect, he may, subject to the provisions of sub-section (7) of section eleven and after giving notice to that person and, if he is a minor, also to his guardian, specifying in which respect the classification is incorrect, and affording such person and such guardian (if any) an opportunity of being heard, alter the classification of that person in the register.

6. The Director shall assign an identity number to every person whose name is included in the register.

7. (1) There shall, in respect of every person whose name is included in the register, other than a native, be included in the register the following particulars and no other particulars whatsoever namely—

(2) There shall in respect of every native whose name is included in the register, be included in the register the following particulars and no other particulars whatsoever, namely—

(3) Upon the death or permanent departure from the Union of a person whose name is included in the register, the date of his death or departure from the Union, as the case may be, shall be recorded in the register.

8. (1) There shall be maintained at the office of the magistrate of every district or at such other office within a district as the Minister may approve, a copy of the register containing the names and other particulars recorded in the register in respect of all persons registered as residing within that district.

(2) A list made from the copy of the register maintained in terms of sub-section (1) and containing in respect of every person whose name is included therein the undermentioned particulars and no other particulars whatsoever, shall be open for inspection by the public at the office of the magistrate of the district to which the list relates and at such other places within the district as the Director may determine at all reasonable times during office hours—

(3) As soon as a list made from the copy of the register referred to in sub-section (1) becomes available for inspection by the public in terms of sub-section (2) at the office of the magistrate of any district, the Director shall cause to be published in the Gazette and in at least one Afrikaans and one English newspaper circulating in that district, a notice to the effect that such list shall, with effect from a date specified in the notice, be so available for inspection by the public at the office of the magistrate of that district and at such other places within that district as the Director may specify.

9. If the name of any person whose name is by this Act required to be included in the register, does not appear on the register, that person or, if that person has not attained the age of sixteen years, his guardian, shall furnish the Director in the prescribed form with such particulars in regard to himself or, as the case may be, his ward under the age of sixteen years, as may be necessary for the inclusion in the register of his or his ward’s name.

10. (1) Every person (other than a native) whose name is included in the register and the guardian of any such person who has not attained the age of sixteen years, shall within fourteen days or, in a particular case, such longer period as the Director may allow, after any permanent change in the ordinary place of residence of that person or of his ward under the age of sixteen years, as the case may be, notify the Director in the prescribed manner of that change of residence.

(2) Any permanent change in the ordinary place of residence of a native from one district to another shall be notified to the Director by such person and in such manner as may be prescribed.

11. (1) Any person who considers himself aggrieved by his classification by the Director in terms of section five and any person who has any objection to the classification of any other person in terms of the said section, may at any time object in writing to the Director against that classification.

(2) Every such objection shall be lodged in duplicate and shall be accompanied by an affidavit in duplicate setting forth fully the grounds upon which the objection is made, and if the objection relates to the classification of a person other than the objector, a copy of the objection and the affidavit shall be ​ transmitted by the Director to the person to whose classification the objection relates.

(3) Every objection received by the Director in terms of sub-section (2) shall be referred by him for decision to a board of not less than three persons, including the chairman, constituted for the purpose by the Minister, and presided over by a person, appointed by the Minister, who is or has been a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa, or a magistrate: Provided that no objection which relates to the classification of a person other than the objector shall be so referred for decision unless the objector has paid the deposit referred to in sub-section (4).

(4) Every person who lodges an objection with the Director in terms of sub-section (2) against the classification of any other person, shall deposit with the Director an amount of ten pounds which amount shall—

(5) The provisions of the Commissions Act, 1947 (Act No. 8 of 1947), except section one thereof, shall apply mutatis mutandis with reference to any board constituted under sub-section (3) of this section: Provided that the Director and every objector and every person in regard to whose classification the objection has been made, shall be entitled to appear before the board concerned either in person or by counsel or attorney on his behalf, to cross-examine witnesses and to adduce such evidence as may be relevant to the matter before the board: Provided further that all sittings of a board shall be held in public or in camera as the person whose classification is in issue may elect.

(6) A board may, if it is satisfied that an objection made in terms of sub-section (1) against the classification of a person other than the objector is unfounded or frivolous or vexatious, order the objector to pay to the person against whose classification the objection has been made, an amount not exceeding an amount equal to the reasonable costs incurred by the latter in connection with his appearance at the hearing of the objection, and any such order shall have all the effects of and may be executed as if it were a civil judgment of a magistrate’s court.

(7) The decision of a board shall be final and binding upon all persons including the Director: Provided that any person who considers himself aggrieved by a decision of a board in regard to his own classification may within thirty days after the decision of the board has been given, appeal against that decision by way of application on notice of motion to the provincial or local division of the Supreme Court of South Africa having jurisdiction in the area within which such person is ordinarily resident.

​ (8) The division of the said Supreme Court to which appeal is made shall enquire into and consider the matter and shall confirm, vary or set aside the decision of the board, or give such other decision as in its opinion the board ought to have given, and may make such order as to costs as it may deem fit.

(9) Any judgment given or order made by a provincial or local division of the said Supreme Court in terms of sub-section (8), shall be subject to appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa in the same manner and on the same conditions as a judgment given or order made in a civil proceeding in that provincial or local division: Provided that no person other than the person whose classification in terms of section five is the subject of the judgment or order shall have a right of appeal to the said Appellate Division unless an order of costs has been made against such person.

(10) Any decision by the court in terms of sub-section (8) or (9) relating to the classification of any person shall, for the purpose of this Act, be deemed to be the decision of a board.

(11) A member of a board who is not a member of the public service may be paid such remuneration for his services as a member of the board as the Minister may, in consultation with the Minister of Finance, determine.

12. The Director may require any person in respect of whom any particulars required for recording in the register, have been furnished in any form or return received under the Census Act, 1910 (Act No. 2 of 1910), or in any form prescribed under section nine , to furnish to him evidence as to the correctness of any such particulars.

13. (1) The Director shall, as soon as practicable after the inclusion in the register of the name of any person who has attained the age of sixteen years or after any person whose name has been so included, attains the age of sixteen years, and subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, issue an identity card to that person.

(2) If the person referred to in sub-section (1) is a white person or a coloured person and is not an alien or a person referred to in sub-section (4), the identity card issued to that person shall contain the following particulars and no other particulars in relation to that person whatsoever, namely—

(3) If the person is an alien and was born in any part of South Africa included in the Union or admitted to the Union for permanent residence therein, the identity card issued to that person shall contain, in addition to the particulars ​ mentioned in sub-section (2), the following particulars and no other particulars in relation to that person whatsoever, namely—

(4) If the person is not a South African citizen and has been admitted to the Union for a temporary purpose the identity card issued to that person shall contain all the particulars prescribed in respect of an alien by sub-section (3) except a photograph of that person.

(5) If the person is a native, the identity card issued to him shall contain the following particulars and no other particulars in relation to him whatsoever, namely—

14. (1) After a date to be fixed by the Governor-General by proclamation in the Gazette , which date shall be not less than three months from the date of the proclamation—

if that person’s name is by this Act required to be included in the register and he has attained the age of sixteen years, to produce to such peace officer or, as the case may be, to such authorized person, his identity card.

(2) Every person who is in terms of sub-section (1) requested by a peace officer or a person authorized thereto by the Director to produce to him his identity card shall, within seven days of the date of such request, produce his identity card to that peace officer or to that authorized person or at a police station ​ indicated by him and recorded by the peace officer or the authorized person, as the case may be.

(3) If any person fails or refuses to indicate a police station in terms of sub-section (2) the peace officer or the authorized person concerned shall for the purposes of that sub-section indicate and record the police station which he considers nearest to the ordinary place of residence of the said person.

15. Any person to whom an identity card has been issued which contains any particulars which are incorrect or which by reason of any change of circumstances or by reason of the alteration by the Director in terms of sub-section (3) of section five or by a board in terms of section eleven of the classification in terms of section five of the person to whom it relates, have become incorrect, or on which the photograph of the person to whom the identity card relates has ceased to be a recognizable image of that person shall, on the written request of the Director, surrender the identity card in question to the Director who shall thereupon issue, free of charge, but subject to the provisions of section sixteen , a fresh identity card to that person.

16. (1) Every person whose name is included in the register, except a person who has not yet attained the age of sixteen years, shall, at his own expense and as often as it is or becomes necessary to issue an identity card to him, furnish the Director with two copies of a recent photograph of himself.

(2) One copy of the photograph referred to in sub-section (1) shall be attached to the identity card issued to the person concerned and the other copy shall be filed in the register.

17. (1) No person employed for the purposes of this Act shall, subject to the provisions of section eight and sub-section (2) of this section, publish or communicate to any other person, otherwise than in the course of such employment and for the purposes of this Act, any information acquired by him in the course of his employment, and no person who has come into possession of any such information which to his knowledge has been communicated to him in contravention of the provisions of this section, shall publish or communicate that information to any other person.

(2) The Director may, notwithstanding the provisions of sub-section (1)—

(3) The Director shall not furnish any particulars to any person under paragraph ( b ) of sub-section (2) unless the purposes for which the information is required, are set out fully in the written application referred to in that paragraph.

18. Any person who—

shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction—

19. (1) A person who in appearance obviously is a white person shall for the purposes of this Act be presumed to be a white person until the contrary is proved.

(2) It shall be no defence to a charge under paragraph ( f ) of section eighteen for failing to comply with the provisions of sub-section (2) of section fourteen that the name of the accused, has not been included in the register or that an identity card has not been issued to him, unless he proves that it was not due to any failure or neglect on his part.

20. (1) The Governor-General may make regulations as to—

and generally, as to all matters which by this Act are required or permitted to be prescribed or which he considers it necessary or expedient to prescribe in order that the purposes of this Act may be achieved.

(2) Any regulations made under sub-section (1) may prescribe penalties for any contravention thereof or failure to comply therewith not exceeding a fine of fifty pounds or imprisonment for a period of six months.

(3) Any regulations made under sub-section (1) shall be laid on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament within fourteen days after promulgation thereof if Parliament is then in ordinary session, or if Parliament is not then in ordinary session, within fourteen days after the commencement of its next ensuing ordinary session, and shall remain on the said Tables for at least twenty-eight consecutive days, and if Parliament is prorogued before the necessary twenty-eight days have elapsed, such regulations shall again be laid on the said Tables as aforesaid within fourteen days after the commencement of its next ensuing ordinary session.

(4) If both Houses of Parliament by resolution passed in the same session (being a session during which such regulations have been laid on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament in terms of sub-section (3)) disapprove of any such regulations or of any provision thereof, such regulations or such provision thereof shall thereafter cease to be of force and effect to the extent to which they are so disapproved, but without prejudice to the validity of anything done in terms of such regulations or of such provision thereof up to the date upon which they so ceased to be of force and effect, or to any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred as at the said date under and by virtue of such regulations or such provision thereof.

21. (1) The Governor-General may by proclamation in the Gazette exclude, for a specified or unspecified period, from the provisions of this Act or exempt, for a specified or unspecified period and either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as may be prescribed in the proclamation, from any specified provisions thereof—

and may in like manner amend or withdraw any such proclamation.

(2) Paragraph ( d ) of sub-section (1) shall not be construed as authorizing the Governor-General to exclude from the provisions of this Act persons whose names were at any time after the fixed date required under this Act to be included in the register, or to exempt from any of the provisions of this Act any persons who were at any time after the date fixed in terms of section fourteen subject to those provisions.

(3) An immigration officer may, subject to the directions of the Minister and for such period of not exceeding six months as he may deem fit, exempt from those provisions of this Act which relate to the production of identity cards, any person who enters the Union for a temporary purpose.

(4) The Director may extend any period for which an exemption has been granted under sub-section (3) by such further period or periods as he may deem fit.

(5) An immigration officer shall forthwith advise the Director of every exemption granted by him in terms of sub-section (3) and every such exemption and every extension of such exemption under sub-section (4) shall be noted by the immigration officer or the Director, as the case may be, on the passport of the person concerned.

(6) The provisions of this Act relating to the issue of identity cards shall not, during the period of an exemption granted under sub-section (3) or during an extension of such period under sub-section (4), apply in respect of the person to whom the exemption relates.

22. The Governor-General may, after consultation with the Executive Committee of the territory of South-West Africa, by proclamation in the Gazette and subject to such conditions, modifications and exceptions as may be prescribed in the proclamation, apply the provisions of this Act to the said territory.

23. The following sub-section is hereby substituted for sub-section (3) of section one of the Statistics Act, 1914 :

“(3) ( a ) There shall be established a statistical council consisting of the Director of Census, who shall be chairman, and the Assistant-Director of Census, who shall be vice-chairman, and not less than six and not more than ten other persons who shall be appointed by the Governor-General and shall hold office during pleasure.

( b ) The council shall advise the Minister in regard to any matter connected with this Act or the Population Registration Act, 1950, and may from time to time make or cause to be made by a person authorized thereto by the Council such inspections of the population register compiled and maintained under the last-mentioned Act as it may deem fit, and shall report any irregularity in the compilation or maintenance thereof to the Minister.

( c ) The council shall meet at least once in every year upon written notice of the chairman.

( d ) A report on the activities of the council shall be submitted to the Minister annually and the Minister shall lay that report on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament within thirty days after receipt thereof by him if Parliament be then in ordinary session, or, if Parliament be not then in ordinary session, within thirty days after the commencement of its next ensuing ordinary session.”

24. This Act shall be called the Population Registration Act, 1950.

This work is in the public domain because it was created and first published in South Africa and it is an official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, or an official translation of such a text.

According to the Copyright Act, 1978 , § 12 (8) ( a ), " No copyright shall subsist in official texts of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, or in official translations of such texts. "

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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation , but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation , but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.

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Apartheid South Africa 1940s to 1960s Essay for Grade 11

Apartheid South Africa 1940s to 1960s Essay for Grade 11

On this page, we guide grade 11 student on how to write “Apartheid South Africa 1940s to 1960s Essay”.

Apartheid in South Africa was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination that existed from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. This period in South African history is marked by the enforcement of legal policies and practices aimed at separating the races and maintaining white dominance in all aspects of life. The years between the 1940s and the 1960s were critical in laying the foundations and entrenching the policies that would define this era. This essay will explore the implementation of apartheid laws , resistance movements , and international reactions to apartheid from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Implementation of Apartheid Laws

The formal introduction of apartheid can be traced back to the National Party’s victory in the 1948 elections . The party, which represented the Afrikaner nationalist interest, institutionalised apartheid as a means of securing white dominance. Key legislation enacted during this period included:

  • The Population Registration Act (1950): This act classified all South Africans into racial groups – ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘coloured’, and ‘Indian’. This classification was a prerequisite for the implementation of other apartheid laws.
  • The Group Areas Act (1950): This law geographically segregated South Africans by race , determining where different racial groups could live, work, and own property.
  • The Suppression of Communism Act (1950): Though ostensibly aimed at combating communism , this act was frequently used to silence critics of apartheid, including non-communists.

Resistance Movements

Resistance against apartheid came from various quarters, including political parties, trade unions, and individual activists. The most prominent of these movements included:

  • The African National Congress (ANC): Initially adopting a policy of peaceful protest, the ANC organised strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience campaigns. Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the ANC shifted to a strategy of armed struggle .
  • The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC): A breakaway from the ANC, the PAC also played a significant role in organising protests against apartheid, notably the anti-Pass Laws protest that led to the Sharpeville Massacre.
  • Sharpeville Massacre (1960): A turning point in the resistance against apartheid, where a peaceful protest against pass laws in Sharpeville turned deadly, with police opening fire on demonstrators, resulting in 69 deaths.

International Reactions to Apartheid

The international community’s response to apartheid was initially muted, but as the realities of apartheid became more widely known, international condemnation grew. Significant aspects of the international reaction included:

  • United Nations Condemnation: The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 1962 calling for sanctions against South Africa, urging member states to cease military and economic relations with the apartheid regime.
  • Isolation in Sports: South Africa was banned from the Olympic Games and other international sporting events, highlighting the growing international isolation of the apartheid government.

Student Guide

When writing an essay on Apartheid in South Africa from the 1940s to the 1960s, focusing on clarity, depth, and evidence-based arguments is crucial. Here are some useful tips to enhance your essay writing:

  • Start with a Strong Thesis Statement:
  • Clearly state your essay’s main argument or analysis point at the end of your introduction. This sets the direction and tone of your essay. For example, “This essay argues that the apartheid laws enacted between the 1940s and 1960s not only institutionalised racial segregation but also laid the foundation for the resistance movements that eventually led to apartheid’s downfall.”
  • Organise Your Essay Logically:
  • Use subheadings to divide your essay into manageable sections, such as the implementation of apartheid laws, resistance movements, and international reactions. This helps readers follow your argument more easily.
  • Use Evidence to Support Your Points:
  • Incorporate specific examples and quotes from primary and secondary sources to back up your statements. For instance, reference the Population Registration Act when discussing racial classification or cite international condemnation from United Nations resolutions.
  • Analyse, Don’t Just Describe:
  • Go beyond simply describing events by analysing their impact and significance . For example, when discussing the Sharpeville Massacre, explore its effect on both the apartheid government’s policies and the tactics of resistance movements.
  • Acknowledge Different Perspectives:
  • While focusing on the factual history of apartheid, also acknowledge the various perspectives on apartheid policies and resistance efforts, including those of the government, opposition movements, and international bodies.
  • Conclude Effectively:
  • Summarise the main points of your essay and reiterate your thesis in the context of the information discussed. Offer a concluding thought that encourages further reflection, such as the legacy of apartheid in contemporary South Africa.
  • Reference Accurately:
  • Ensure all sources are accurately cited in your essay to avoid plagiarism and to lend credibility to your arguments. Follow the specific referencing style required by your teacher or educational institution.
  • Proofread and Revise:
  • Check your essay for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Also, ensure that your argument flows logically and that each section supports your thesis statement.
  • Seek Feedback:
  • Before final submission, consider getting feedback from teachers, peers, or tutors. Fresh eyes can offer valuable insights and identify areas for improvement.

By incorporating these tips, you can create a well-argued, informative, and engaging essay on Apartheid in South Africa that meets the expectations of a Grade 11 history assignment.

The period from the 1940s to the 1960s was pivotal in the establishment and consolidation of the apartheid system in South Africa. Through the enactment of draconian laws, the apartheid government institutionalised racial discrimination, which led to widespread resistance within the country and condemnation from the international community. This era laid the groundwork for the struggles and transformations that would eventually lead to the end of apartheid.

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Population Registration Act, 1950

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Population Registration Act, 1950
CitationAct No. 30 of 1950
Enacted by
Assented to by
22 June 1950
Commenced7 July 1950
Repealed28 June 1991
Administered by
Repealed by

The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid . [1] [2] [3]

External links

Race classification certificate issued in terms of the Population Registration Act Population registration certificate South Africa 1988.jpg

Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were largely determined by the group to which an individual belonged. There were three basic racial classifications under the law: Black , White and Coloured (mixed). Indians (that is, South Asians from the former British India , and their descendants) were later added as a separate classification as they were seen as having "no historical right to the country".

An Office for Race Classification was set up to overview the classification process. Classification into groups was carried out using criteria such as outer appearance, general acceptance and social standing. For example, it defined a "white person" as one who "in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person, or is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously a white person." Because some aspects of the profile were of a social nature, [2] reclassification was not uncommon, and a board was established to conduct that process. The following criteria were used for separating the coloured people from the white people: [2]

  • Characteristics of the person's head hair
  • Characteristics of the person's other hair
  • Skin colour
  • Facial features
  • Home language and especially the knowledge of Afrikaans
  • Area where the person lives, the person's friends and acquaintances
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Eating and drinking habits

This law worked in tandem with other laws passed as part of the apartheid system. Under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, it was illegal for a white person to marry a person of another race. With the enactment of the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, it also became a crime for a white person and a person of another race to have sexual intercourse.

Under the act, as amended, Coloureds and Indians were formally classified into various subgroups, including Cape Coloured , Malay , Griqua , Chinese , Indian , Other Asian and Other Coloured . [4] [5]

The South African Parliament repealed the act on 17 June 1991. However, the racial categories defined in the act remain ingrained in South African culture [6] [7] [8] [9] and they still form the basis of some official policies and statistics aimed at redressing past economic imbalances ( Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity ). [8] [10] [11]

  • Demographics of South Africa
  • Pencil test
  • Urban apartheid

Related Research Articles

Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of South Africa</span>

According to the 2022 census, the population of South Africa is about 62 million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The South African National Census of 2022 was the most recent census held; the next will be in 2032.

Miscegenation is marriage or admixture between people who are members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere and genus . The word first appeared in Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro , an anti-abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 presidential election in the United States. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws. These laws were overruled federally in 1967, and by the year 2000, all states had removed them from their laws, with Alabama being the last to do so on November 7, 2000. In the 21st century, newer scientific data shows that human populations are actually genetically quite similar. Studies show that races are more of an arbitrary social construct, and do not actually have a major genetic delineation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Coloureds</span> Ethnic group in South Africa

Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coloureds</span> Multiracial ethnic group of Southern Africa

Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa who have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with European settlers intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes, and Asian slaves of the region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s.

South Africa is known for its ethnic and cultural diversity. Almost all South Africans speak English to some degree of proficiency, in addition to their native language, with English acting as a lingua franca in commerce, education, and government. South Africa has eleven official languages, but other indigenous languages are spoken by smaller groups, chiefly Khoisan languages.

<i>Colored</i> Racial exonym

Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur. It has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.

Chinese South Africans are Overseas Chinese who reside in South Africa, including those whose ancestors came to South Africa in the early 20th century until Chinese immigration was banned under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1904. Chinese industrialists from the Republic of China (Taiwan) who arrived in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and post-apartheid immigrants to South Africa now outnumber locally-born Chinese South Africans.

In South Africa under apartheid, and South West Africa, pass laws served as an internal passport system designed to racially segregate the population, restrict movement of individuals, and allocate low-wage migrant labor. Also known as the natives' law , these laws severely restricted the movements of Black South African and other racial groups by confining them to designated areas. Initially applied to African men, attempts to enforce pass laws on women in the 1910s and 1950s sparked significant protests. Pass laws remained a key aspect of the country's apartheid system until their effective termination in 1986. The pass document used to enforce these laws was derogatorily referred to as the dompas .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apartheid</span> South African system of racial separation

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap , which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. In this minoritarian system, there was social stratification and campaigns of marginalization such that white citizens had the highest status, with them being followed by Indians as well as Coloureds and then Black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.

Goffals or Coloured Zimbabweans are persons of mixed race, predominately those claiming both European and African descent, in Malawi, Zambia, and, particularly Zimbabwe. They are generally known as Coloureds, though the term Goffal is used by some in the Coloured community to refer to themselves, though this does not refer to the mixed-race community in nearby South Africa. The community includes many diverse constituents of Shona, Northern Ndebele, Bemba, Fengu, British, Afrikaner, Cape Coloured, Cape Malay and less commonly Portuguese, Greek, Goan, and Indian descent. Similar mixed-race communities exist throughout Southern Africa, notably the Cape Coloureds of South Africa.

A referendum on a new constitution was held in South Africa on 2 November 1983 in which the white population was given the opportunity to approve or reject the Constitution of 1983. This constitution introduced the Tricameral Parliament, in which Coloured and Indian South Africans would be represented in separate parliamentary chambers, while black Africans, who were the majority of South Africa's population, would remain unrepresented. The referendum passed with 66.3% of voters voting "Yes"; consequently the new constitution came into force on 3 September 1984.

White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afrikaners, and the Anglophone descendants of predominantly British colonists of South Africa. In 2016, 57.9% were native Afrikaans speakers, 40.2% were native English speakers, and 1.9% spoke another language as their mother tongue, such as Portuguese, Greek, or German. White South Africans are by far the largest population of White Africans. White was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apartheid legislation</span> South African legislations which were used to enforce apartheid

The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as apartheid was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races. While the bulk of this legislation was enacted after the election of the National Party government in 1948, it was preceded by discriminatory legislation enacted under earlier British and Afrikaner governments. Apartheid is distinguished from segregation in other countries by the systematic way in which it was formalized in law.

Brown is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown complexion.

Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the largest ethnically Indian-populated cities outside of India.

The Population Registration Act Repeal Act, 1991 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which repealed the Population Registration Act, 1950, ending the legal racial classification of South Africans which formed the basis of apartheid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pencil test (South Africa)</span> Method of assessing whether a person has Afro-textured hair

The pencil test is a method of assessing whether a person has Afro-textured hair. In the pencil test, a pencil is pushed through the person's hair. How easily it comes out determines whether the person has "passed" or "failed" the test.

Ethnic groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by the colonial apartheid regime remain ingrained in South African society with the governing party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) continuing to classify the population as belonging to one of the three colonial-era constructed racial groups: 'Blacks', 'Whites', and 'Coloureds' as well as Indians.

Deborah Posel is a South African sociologist who is professor emeritus at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She was the founding director of two prominent interdisciplinary research institutes, UCT's Institute for Humanities in Africa and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. Her academic interests are primarily in the historical sociology of apartheid and the sociology of post-apartheid South Africa.

  • 1 2 3 Posel, Deborah (2001). "What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife" (PDF) . Michigan State University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2016 . Retrieved 4 April 2018 .
  • ↑ "South African activist teacher gets education doctorate" . Stanford News Service . 1991 . Retrieved 9 March 2013 .
  • ↑ Valentine, Sue. "An appalling 'science' " . Sunday Times Heritage Project . The Times. Archived from the original on 23 April 2012 . Retrieved 9 March 2013 .
  • ↑ Leach, Graham (1986). South Africa   : no easy path to peace (1. publ.   ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp.   70 . ISBN   0710208480 . Population Registration Act, 1959 cape coloured.
  • ↑ Rondganger, Lee (6 June 2006). "Being an African makes me who I am" . IOL . Retrieved 9 March 2013 .
  • ↑ du Preez, Max (9 March 2011). "Are we all 'coloured'?" . News24 . Retrieved 9 March 2013 .
  • 1 2 Posel, Deborah (2001). "What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife" (PDF) . Transformation : 50–74. ISSN   0258-7696 . Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 November 2006.
  • ↑ Pillay, Kathryn (2019). "Indian Identity in South Africa". The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity . pp.   77–92. doi : 10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_9 . ISBN   978-981-13-2897-8 .
  • ↑ Lehohla, Pali (5 May 2005). "Debate over race and censuses not peculiar to SA" . Business Report . Archived from the original on 14 August 2007 . Retrieved 25 August 2013 . Others pointed out that the repeal of the Population Registration Act in 1991 removed any legal basis for specifying 'race'. The Identification Act of 1997 makes no mention of race. On the other hand, the Employment Equity Act speaks of 'designated groups' being 'black people, women and people with disabilities'. The Act defines 'black' as referring to 'Africans, coloureds and Indians'. Apartheid and the racial identification which underpinned it explicitly linked race with differential access to resources and power. If the post-apartheid order was committed to remedying this, race would have to be included in surveys and censuses, so that progress in eradicating the consequences of apartheid could be measured and monitored. This was the reasoning that led to a 'self-identifying' question about 'race' or 'population group' in both the 1996 and 2001 population censuses, and in Statistics SA's household survey programme.
  • ↑ Davis, Rebecca (25 November 2013). "DA: We're not over race, but united we stand" . Daily Maverick . Retrieved 25 November 2013 .
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(1884) (1892) (1894) (1894) (1906) (1909) (1911) (1913) (1923) (1927) (1927) (1936) (1936) (1945) (1946)
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After its victory the National Party rapidly consolidated its control over the state and in subsequent years won a series of elections with increased majorities. Parliament removed Coloured voters from the common voters’ rolls in 1956. By 1969 the electorate was exclusively white: Indians never had any parliamentary representation, and the seats for white representatives of Blacks and Coloureds had been abolished.

South Africa

One plank of the National Party platform was for South Africa to become a republic , preferably outside the Commonwealth . The issue was presented to white voters in 1960 as a way to bring about white unity, especially because of concern with the problems that the Belgian Congo was then experiencing as it became independent. By a simple majority the voters approved the republic status. The government structure would change only slightly: the governor-general would be replaced by a state president, who would be chosen by Parliament. At a meeting in London in March 1961, South Africa had hoped to retain its Commonwealth status, but, when other members criticized it over its apartheid policies, it withdrew from the organization and on May 31, 1961, became the Republic of South Africa.

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The government vigorously furthered its political goals by making it compulsory for white children to attend schools that were conducted in their home language, either Afrikaans or English (except for the few who went to private schools). It advanced Afrikaners to top positions in the civil service , army, and police and in such state corporations as the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It also awarded official contracts to Afrikaner banks and insurance companies. These methods raised the living standard of Afrikaners closer to that of English-speaking white South Africans.

Following a recession in the early 1960s, the economy grew rapidly until the late 1970s. By that time, owing to the efforts of public and private enterprise, South Africa had developed a modern infrastructure , by far the most advanced in Africa. It possessed efficient financial institutions, a national network of roads and railways, modernized port facilities in Cape Town and Durban , long-established mining operations producing a wealth of diamonds, gold, and coal, and a range of industries. De Beers Consolidated Mines and the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa , founded by Ernest Oppenheimer in 1917, dominated the private sector, forming the core of one of the world’s most powerful networks of mining, industrial, and financial companies and employing some 800,000 workers on six continents. State corporations (parastatals) controlled industries vital to national security. South African Coal, Oil, and Gas Corporation (SASOL) was established in 1950 to make South Africa self-sufficient in petroleum resources by converting coal to gasoline and diesel fuel . After the United Nations (UN) placed a ban on arms exports to South Africa in 1964, Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor) was created to produce high-quality military equipment.

The man who played a major part in transforming apartheid from an election slogan into practice was Hendrik F. Verwoerd . Born in the Netherlands, Verwoerd immigrated with his parents to South Africa when he was a child. He became minister of native affairs in 1950 and was prime minister from 1958 until 1966, when Dimitri Tsafendas, a Coloured man, assassinated him in Parliament. (Tsafendas was judged to be insane and was confined to a mental institution after the murder.) Verwoerd’s successor, B.J. Vorster , had been minister of justice , police , and prisons , and he shared Verwoerd’s philosophy of white supremacy . In Verwoerd’s vision, South Africa’s population contained four distinct racial groups—white, Black, Coloured, and Asian—each with an inherent culture . Because whites were the “civilized” group, they were entitled to control the state.

The all-white Parliament passed many laws to legalize and institutionalize the apartheid system. The Population Registration Act (1950) classified every South African by race. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and the Immorality Act (1950) prohibited interracial marriage or sex. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) defined communism and its aims broadly to include any opposition to the government and empowered the government to detain anyone it thought might further “communist” aims. The Indemnity Act (1961) made it legal for police officers to commit acts of violence, to torture, or to kill in the pursuit of official duties. Later laws gave the police the right to arrest and detain people without trial and to deny them access to their families or lawyers. Other laws and regulations collectively known as “petty apartheid” segregated South Africans in every sphere of life: in buses, taxis, and hearses, in cinemas, restaurants, and hotels, in trains and railway waiting rooms, and in access to beaches. When a court declared that separate amenities should be equal, Parliament passed a special law to override it.

“Grand apartheid,” in contrast, related to the physical separation of the racial groups in the cities and countryside. Under the Group Areas Act (1950) the cities and towns of South Africa were divided into segregated residential and business areas. Thousands of Coloureds, Blacks, and Indians were removed from areas classified for white occupation.

Blacks were treated like “tribal” people and were required to live on reserves under hereditary chiefs except when they worked temporarily in white towns or on white farms. The government began to consolidate the scattered reserves into 8 (eventually 10) distinct territories, designating each of them as the “homeland,” or Bantustan , of a specific Black ethnic community . The government manipulated homeland politics so that compliant chiefs controlled the administrations of most of those territories. Arguing that Bantustans matched the decolonization process then taking place in tropical Africa, the government devolved powers onto those administrations and eventually encouraged them to become “independent.” Between 1976 and 1981 four accepted independence— Transkei , Bophuthatswana , Venda , and Ciskei —though none was ever recognized by a foreign government. Like the other homelands, however, they were economic backwaters, dependent on subsidies from Pretoria .

Conditions in the homelands continued to deteriorate, partly because they had to accommodate vast numbers of people with minimal resources. Many people found their way to the towns; but the government, attempting to reverse this flood, strengthened the pass laws by making it illegal for Blacks to be in a town for more than 72 hours at a time without a job in a white home or business. A particularly brutal series of forced removals were conducted from the 1960s to the early ’80s, in which more than 3.5 million Blacks were taken from towns and white rural areas (including lands they had occupied for generations) and dumped into the reserves, sometimes in the middle of winter and without any facilities.

The government also established direct control over the education of Blacks. The Bantu Education Act (1953) took Black schools away from the missions, and more state-run schools—especially at the elementary level—were created to meet the expanding economy’s increasing demand for semiskilled Black labor. The Extension of University Education Act (1959) prohibited the established universities from accepting Black students, except with special permission. Instead, the government created new ethnic university colleges—one each for Coloureds, Indians, and Zulus and one for Sotho , Tswana , and Venda students, as well as a medical school for Blacks. The South African Native College at Fort Hare, which missionaries had founded primarily but not exclusively for Blacks, became a state college solely for Xhosa students. The government staffed these ethnic colleges with white supporters of the National Party and subjected the students to stringent controls.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 20, 2023 | Original: October 7, 2010

A protest at Johannesburg's Wits Medical School during South African Apartheid in 1989.

Apartheid, or “apartness” in the language of 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. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans—a majority of the population—were forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities. Contact between the two groups was limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its 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.

Apartheid in South Africa

Racial segregation and white supremacy had become central aspects of South African policy long before apartheid began. The controversial 1913 Land Act , passed three years after South Africa gained its independence, marked the beginning of territorial segregation by forcing Black Africans to live in reserves and making it illegal for them to work as sharecroppers. Opponents of the Land Act formed the South African National Native Congress, which would become the African National Congress (ANC).

Did you know? ANC leader Nelson Mandela, released from prison in February 1990, worked closely with President F.W. de Klerk's government to draw up a new constitution for South Africa. After both sides made concessions, they reached agreement in 1993, and would share the Nobel Peace Prize that year for their efforts.

The Great Depression and World War II brought increasing economic woes to South Africa, and convinced the government to strengthen its policies of racial segregation. In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party won the general election under the slogan “apartheid” (literally “apartness”). Their goal was not only to separate South Africa’s white minority from its non-white majority, but also to separate non-whites from each other, and to divide Black South Africans along tribal lines in order to decrease their political power.

Apartheid Becomes Law

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. In some cases, the legislation split families; a parent could be classified as white, while their children were classified as colored.

A series of Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the white minority, and “pass laws” required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas.

In order to limit contact between the races, the government established separate public facilities for whites and non-whites, limited the activity of nonwhite labor unions and denied non-white participation in national government.

population registration act essay

Apartheid and Separate Development

Hendrik Verwoerd , who became prime minister in 1958, refined apartheid policy further into a system he referred to as “separate development.” The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 Bantu homelands known as Bantustans. Separating Black South Africans from each other enabled the government to claim there was no Black majority and reduced the possibility that Black people would unify into one nationalist organization.

Every Black South African was designated as a citizen as one of the Bantustans, a system that supposedly gave them full political rights, but effectively removed them from the nation’s political body.

In one of the most devastating aspects of apartheid, the government forcibly removed Black South Africans from rural areas designated as “white” to the homelands and sold their land at low prices to white farmers. From 1961 to 1994, more than 3.5 million people were forcibly removed from their homes and deposited in the Bantustans, where they were plunged into poverty and hopelessness.

Opposition to Apartheid

Resistance to apartheid within South Africa took many forms over the years, from non-violent demonstrations, protests and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance.

Together with the South Indian National Congress, the ANC organized a mass meeting in 1952, during which attendees burned their pass books. A group calling itself the Congress of the People adopted a Freedom Charter in 1955 asserting that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black or white.” The government broke up the meeting and arrested 150 people, charging them with high treason.

Sharpeville Massacre

In 1960, at the Black township of Sharpeville, the police opened fire on a group of unarmed Black people associated with the Pan-African Congress (PAC), an offshoot of the ANC. The group had arrived at the police station without passes, inviting arrest as an act of resistance. At least 67 people were killed and more than 180 wounded.

The Sharpeville massacre convinced many anti-apartheid leaders that they could not achieve their objectives by peaceful means, and both the PAC and ANC established military wings, neither of which ever posed a serious military threat to the state.

Nelson Mandela

By 1961, most resistance leaders had been captured and sentenced to long prison terms or executed. Nelson Mandela , a founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC, was incarcerated from 1963 to 1990; his imprisonment would draw international attention and help garner support for the anti-apartheid cause.

On June 10, 1980, his followers smuggled a letter from Mandela in prison and made it public: “UNITE! MOBILIZE! FIGHT ON! BETWEEN THE ANVIL OF UNITED MASS ACTION AND THE HAMMER OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE WE SHALL CRUSH APARTHEID!”

population registration act essay

Key Steps That Led to End of Apartheid

A combination of internal and international resistance to apartheid helped dismantle the white supremacist regime.

Nelson Mandela: His Written Legacy

Read excerpts from letters, speeches and memoirs reflecting on each stage of his life—from the innocence of a tribal village boy to the triumphs and pressures of being South Africa's first black president.

How Nelson Mandela Used Rugby as a Symbol of South African Unity

In a nation bitterly divided by apartheid, Mandela used the game to foster shared national pride.

President F.W. de Klerk

In 1976, when thousands of Black children in Soweto, a Black township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for Black African students, the police opened fire with tear gas and bullets.

The protests and government crackdowns that followed, combined with a national economic recession, drew more international attention to South Africa and shattered any remaining illusions that apartheid had brought peace or prosperity to the nation.

The United Nations General Assembly had denounced apartheid in 1973, and in 1976 the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. In 1985, the United Kingdom and United States imposed economic sanctions on the country.

Under pressure from the international community, the National Party government of Pieter Botha sought to institute some reforms, including abolition of the pass laws and the ban on interracial sex and marriage. The reforms fell short of any substantive change, however, and by 1989 Botha was pressured to step aside in favor of another conservative president, F.W. de Klerk, who had supported apartheid throughout his political career.

When Did Apartheid End?

Though a conservative, De Klerk underwent a conversion to a more pragmatic political philosophy, and his government subsequently repealed the Population Registration Act, as well as most of the other legislation that formed the legal basis for apartheid. De Klerk freed Nelson Mandela on February 11, 1990.

A new constitution, which enfranchised Black citizens and other racial groups, took effect in 1994, and elections that year led to a coalition government with a nonwhite majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system.

The End of Apartheid. Archive: U.S. Department of State . A History of Apartheid in South Africa. South African History Online . South Africa: Twenty-Five Years Since Apartheid. The Ohio State University: Stanton Foundation . 

population registration act essay

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Sovereigns from House of the Romanovs 1613-1913 Lives and essays. Moscow, 1913

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Sovereigns from House of the Romanovs 1613-1913 Lives and essays. Moscow, 1913 Hardcover – January 1, 1913

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population registration act essay

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I-25 to close in Casper on Wednesday night. Detour set.

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  • Aug 27, 2024
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Interstate 25 will close to traffic at the North Platte River on Wednesday night as crews pour the new deck on the adjacent F Street bridge, according to a news release from the Wyoming Department of Transportation.

The closure will run from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., the release stated.

The closure will affect both directions of travel between the Shoshoni Bypass and Beverly Street/Bryan Stock Trail.

Southbound traffic will exit 1-25 at the Shoshone Bypass, divert north of the Ford Wyoming Center to Amoco Road, to Bryan Stock Trail and reenter the interstate at Yellowstone, east of Beverly Street/Bryan Stock Trail.

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Jeff Goetz, senior public relations specialist for WyDOT District 2, said over 8,200 vehicles were counted in a day on I-25 at Center Street in 2023.

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Karl Marx in New-York Tribune 1859

From Population, Crime and Pauperism

Source : Marx and Engels on Ireland , Progress Publishers, Moscow 1971; First Published : in New-York Daily Tribune , September 16, 1859; Transcribed : by Andy Blunden.

There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery, and increases in crimes even more rapidly than in numbers. It is true enough that, if we compare the year 1855 with the preceding years, there seems to have occurred a sensible decrease of crime from 1855 to 1858. The total number of people committed for trial, which in 1854 amounted to 29,359, had sunk down to 17,855 in 1858; and the number of convicted had also greatly fallen off, if not quite in the same ratio. This apparent decrease of crime, however, since 1854, is to be exclusively attributed to some technical changes in British jurisdiction; to the Juvenile Offenders’ Act [77] in the first instance, and, in the second instance, to the operation of the Criminal Justice Act of 1855, which authorises the Police Magistrates to pass sentences for short periods, with the consent of the prisoners. Violations of the law are generally the offspring of economical agencies beyond the control of the legislator, but, as the working of the Juvenile Offenders’ Act testifies, it depends to some degree on official society to stamp certain violations of its rules as crimes or as transgressions only. This difference of nomenclature, so far from being indifferent, decides on the fate of thousands of men, and the moral tone of society. Law itself may not only punish crime, but improvise it, and the law of professional lawyers is very apt to work in this direction. Thus, it has been justly remarked by an eminent historian, that the Catholic clergy of the medieval times, with its dark views of human nature, introduced by its influence into criminal legislation, has created more crimes than forgiven sins.

Strange to say, the only part of the United Kingdom in which crime has seriously decreased, say by 50, and even by 75 per cent, is Ireland. How can we harmonise this fact with the public-opinion slang of England, according to which Irish nature, instead of British misrule, is responsible for Irish shortcomings? It is, again, no act on the part of the British ruler, but simply the consequence of a famine, [78] an exodus, and a general combination of circumstances favourable to the demand for Irish labour, that has worked this happy change in Irish nature. However that may be, the significance of the following tabular statements cannot be misunderstood:

 I. — Crimes in Ireland.
— Committed for Trial —
 
YearsMalesFemalesTotalConvicted
184414,7994,64919,4488,042
184512,8073,88916,6967,101
184614,2044,28818,4928,639
184723,5527,65731,20915,233
184828,7659,75738,52218,206
184931,34010,64941,98921,202
185022,6823,64431,32617,108
185117,3377,34724,68414,377
185212,4445,23417,67810,454
185310,2604,88415,1448,714
18547,9373,85111,7887,051
18556,0192,9939,0125,220
18565,0972,0027,0994,024
18575,4581,7527,2103,925
18584,7081,6006,3083,350
II. — Paupers in Ireland.
YearsNo of
Parishes
PaupersYearsNo. of
Parishes
Paupers
184988082,357185488378,929
185088079,031185588379,887
185188176,906185688379,973
185288275,111185788379,217
185388275,437185888379,199

77. The reference is to the setting up in England in 1854 of corrective schools to which juvenile delinquents, aged from 12 to 16, were sent for crimes which according to former laws were punishable by short-term imprisonment.

78. In 1845-47 a grievous famine blighted Ireland due to the ruin of farms and the pauperisation of the peasants, who were cruelly exploited by the English landlords. Although there was a great dearth of potatoes, the principal diet of the Irish peasants, the English landlords continued to export food from the country, condemning the poorest sections of the population to starvation. About a million people starved to death and the new wave of emigration caused by the famine carried away another million. As a result large districts of Ireland were depopulated and the abandoned land was turned into pastures by the Irish and English landlords.

Marx and Engels on Ireland | Marx-Engels Archive

COMMENTS

  1. South African Population Registration Act of 1950

    Updated on August 03, 2019. South Africa's Population Registration Act No. 30 (commenced on July 7) was passed in 1950 and defined in clear terms who belonged to a particular race. Race was defined by physical appearance and the act required people to be identified and registered from birth as belonging to one of four distinct racial groups ...

  2. Population Registration Act, 1950

    The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. [ 1][ 2][ 3] Race classification certificate issued in terms of the Population Registration Act. Explanation of South African identity numbers in ...

  3. Population Registration Act

    The Population Registration Act (1950) classified every South African by race. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and the Immorality Act (1950) prohibited interracial marriage or sex. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) defined communism and its aims broadly to include any opposition to the…. Read More.

  4. Grade 9

    Learn about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, racism, human evolution and Apartheid in South Africa. This web page covers the key events and concepts from 1948 to 1990 that shaped the country's history and identity.

  5. Population Registration Act, No. 30

    Population Registration Act, no. 30Introduction: Voted into South African law in 1950, the Population Registration Act, no. 30 was not repealed until 1991. All South African citizens were required to register according to racial characteristics; this classification then helped in the enforcement of other laws prohibiting mixed-race activities.

  6. PDF The Book of Life: The South African Population Register and the

    in 1948. The Population Registration Act of 1950, which preceded both Group Areas and the Bewysburo (Bureau of Proof), required every South African to secure an Identity Card - a laminated certificate that contained a photograph submitted by the applicant, recorded an address, a simple identity number and a racial classification.

  7. Population Registration Act, 1950 Explained

    The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. [1] [2] [3] Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were largely determined by the group to which an ...

  8. Conclusion

    The Population Registration Act of 1950 was the foundation that allowed the South African Government to make laws in the future that caused certain racial groups to lose rights. If there weren't official race classifications given to each citizen, individuals could have disagreed with the government as to whether they were personally affected ...

  9. Group Areas Act

    Racial segregation had long existed in South Africa, but the rise of the National Party—a political party dedicated to policies of white supremacy that held executive power from 1948 until 1994—greatly extended the enactment and enforcement of racial segregation with its apartheid policies, the Group Areas Act being among the most significant. The act used the Population Registration Act ...

  10. PDF Formulation of the Population Registration Act

    The Population Registration Act and Popular Understandings of Race: A case study of Sydenham - Vashna Jagarnath, June 2005 This paper seeks to build on Deborah Posel's1 analysis of the social impact of the Population Registration Act by adding a more socially based history that takes into

  11. Introduction

    Thesis. The Population Registration Act of 1950 affected the rights of specific racial groups living in South Africa during the apartheid era because this act was the foundation for future laws and other government actions that only affected certain racial groups, whose members were classified by the Population Registration Act of 1950.

  12. Population Registration Act, 1950

    The Population Registration Act (Act No. 30 of 1950) was a South African law which from the apartheid era which required every citizen and resident to be classified according to their race and ethnic group, and recorded in the population register. It was one of the foundations of legislative apartheid, with all the subsequent segregation legislation being based on the classification it ...

  13. 1950. Population Registration Act No 30

    To search the O'Malley archive please click here. 1950. Population Registration Act No 30. This "provided for the compilation of a register of the entire South African population" (Dyzenhaus 1991: 40). The South African population now became divided into three racial groups: 'White', 'Black' ('African', 'Native' and/or 'Bantu') and 'Coloured ...

  14. Population Registration Act, Act No 30 of 1950

    Population Registration Act, Act No 30 of 1950. Date of Publication: 1990-07-00. The Act was to make provision for the compilation of a Register of the Population of the Union; for the issue of Identity cards to persons whose names are included in the Register; and for matters incidental thereto.

  15. Apartheid South Africa 1940s to 1960s Essay for Grade 11

    Apartheid South Africa 1940s to 1960s Essay for Grade 11 Apartheid in South Africa was a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination that existed from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. This period in ... The Population Registration Act (1950): This act classified all South Africans into racial groups - 'white ...

  16. Population Registration Act, 1950

    The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. [1] [2] [3] Contents. See also; References; External links; Race classification certificate issued in terms of the Population Registration Act Explanation of South African identity numbers in an ...

  17. South Africa

    The Population Registration Act (1950) classified every South African by race. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and the Immorality Act (1950) prohibited interracial marriage or sex. ... The Indemnity Act (1961) made it legal for police officers to commit acts of violence, to torture, or to kill in the pursuit of official duties.

  18. South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid

    Summary. Apartheid, a political and economic system built on race, required laws and administrative authorities to determine each person's racial identity. Race is never an objective, biological characteristic; in any society, race is a socially constructed concept. The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each citizen be issued an ...

  19. Apartheid: Definition & South Africa

    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.

  20. Sovereigns from House of the Romanovs 1613-1913 Lives and essays

    Sovereigns from House of the Romanovs 1613-1913 Lives and essays. Moscow, 1913 [n/a] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Sovereigns from House of the Romanovs 1613-1913 Lives and essays. Moscow, 1913

  21. After the registration of Moscow Patriarchate juridiction

    The registration should be taken first of all as routine act of civil law. It is enough to read the press release from April 17 of the Ministry of internal Affairs to be convinced that by this, the Moscow Patriarchate cannot legalize its canonical, ecclesiastical or historical claims in Estonia.

  22. I-25 to close Wednesday night in Casper. Detours planned

    Interstate 25 will close to traffic at the North Platte River on Wednesday night as crews pour the new deck on the adjacent F Street bridge, according to a news release from the Wyoming Department ...

  23. Karl Marx in New-York Tribune 1859

    Source: Marx and Engels on Ireland, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1971; First Published: in New-York Daily Tribune, September 16, 1859; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden. There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery, and increases in crimes even more rapidly than in numbers.

  24. Full article: The Soviet Famine of 1931-1934: Genocide, a Result of

    The demographic consequences are estimated by Kondrashin as 2.5 million excess deaths and 700,000 unborn children, making a demographic loss of 3.2 million. These figures are derived from the population registration data, as adjusted by Soviet statisticians in 1934 (Kondrashin Citation 2018, pp. 399-401). This ignores another possible source ...