# Apartheid South Africa

Apartheid South Africa (officially the Union of South Africa from 1948-1961 and the Republic of South Africa from 1961-1994), was the South African state from the beginning of Apartheid in 1948 to the first multi-racial election in 1994. It began following the 1948 general election, when the National Party won a surprise victory, gaining a majority of seats by forming a coalition with the Afrikaner Party while losing the popular vote. The Apartheid state formally ended following the ANC victory in the 1994 general elections, with Nelson Mandela becoming the first black President of South Africa.
Since the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River colonies into the Union of South Africa, racial segregation and white supremacy had been a dominant factor in the day-to-day lives of South Africans. The South Africa Act enfranchised White people, leaving non-whites without political representation. The English-dominanted government then passed several discriminatory pieces of legislation into law, including the Natives Land Act, 1913, which reserved 13% of the land to black people. Following World War II, the United Party government of Jan Smuts began to move away from the rigid segregationist laws, and a growing number of blacks began moving into urban areas. However, growing fears from Afrikaner nationalists who wanted stricter segregation allowed the opposition Herenigde Nasionale Party to prevail in the 1948 election, with D.F. Malan being elected the first Nationalist Prime Minister.
Following the election, the Nationalist government began enacting legislation that would establish the Apartheid system. The first of these set of discriminatory laws would be the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, which forbade marriage between whites and non-whites. To determine who was classified as a "white person" and "non-white person", the government passed the Population Registration Act, which required that all existing South African citizens (including newborns and immigrants) be classified into one of a number of racial "population groups" (white, colored, and black). Further legislation such as Group Areas Act and the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act entrenched racial segregation into law.
From 1948 onwards, the National Party won every subsequent general election, securing a popular mandate from South Africa's white minority to continue implementing and expanding the system of apartheid. This political dominance allowed the party to entrench discriminatory laws and policies that systematically oppressed the country's non-white population. The National Party's electoral success was largely attributed to the backing of the white electorate, which feared demographic change and sought to preserve the privileges afforded to them under colonial rule. The party's control of government enabled the institutionalization of racial segregation, exclusion from political participation, and the suppression of resistance movements, all of which would shape South Africa's socio-political landscape for the next several decades.
The Apartheid state faced significant and sustained internal opposition, with the African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), being the principal domestic forces challenging the regime. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, this resistance grew more organized and widespread, encompassing grassroots movements, student protests, and labor strikes. Despite the apartheid government's efforts to suppress dissent through repressive legislation, mass arrests, and acts of state-sanctioned violence, the resistance persisted. To combat the resistance, the National Party responded with brutal crackdowns, enforcing a policy of protracted sectarian violence, detentions without trial, censorship, and forced relocations, which left thousands dead, imprisoned, or exiled. Additionally, international opposition began to affect the Apartheid regime, with solidarity movements being held in many western countries. The United States Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1985, aimed at dismantling the system through sanctions. Some reforms of the apartheid system were undertaken, including allowing for Indian and Coloured political representation in parliament, but these measures failed to appease most activist groups.
On 1 February 1990, in his opening speech to Parliament, State President F. W. de Klerk announced he would dismantle the Apartheid system and begin a negotiated transition to constitutional democracy. In 1992, South Africa held a whites-only referendum, in which the electorate voted decisively to end Apartheid. The government continued to make progress with the negotiations, culminating in the first multi-racial elections in the country's history, and Nelson Mandela becoming the first black President of South Africa.