-
1920- The Native Affairs Act
This law paved the way for the separate apartheid state. It created a principal of separate, tribally based district councils that gave political representation for Africans, and also the concept of bantustans was shown in the act -
1923- Urban Areas Act
It regulated the presence of Africans in urban areas, controlling where Africans can and can't go. This signifies the beginning of controlling African populations and restricting the rights of Africans. This started separate facilities for Africans and the restrictions we would later see during the Great Apartheid -
1926- Colour Bar Act
This act was implicated as there was previously lots of colored people working ill fared jobs. Whites believed they were taking their jobs, so they passed an act that certified competency for work. This act represents the belief that the welfare of whites would suffer due to blacks if they were not legislated out of the job market. -
1936- Development Trust and Land Act No. 18
This is the act that designated around 13% of land to Black Africans, which forced them into barren, poverty-ridden, overcrowded lands were economic opportunity was nonexistent. This also gave way to the trend of Black Africans commuting long distances to work, which gave rise to Black passes. -
1936- Representation of Blacks Act No. 12
This act removed the elite Black South Africans in the Cape from the common role (most Black South Africans never had the right to vote), placing them instead on a separate role that was unequally represented and recorded. They were instead represented by four white officials. This is further evidence of the removal of Black rights and supression of Black South Africans' voices politically. -
1950- Population Registration Act
This act created a national register that registered and recorded every person's race. This also led to the need for a Race Classification Board, which determined the race of some peoples. This is significant because it determined the implementation of other race-related laws. This also let police officers abuse colored South Africans as they were often accused of being a different race than the one listed on their passes. -
1951- Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act
This act gave the Minister of Native Affairs the power to remove blacks from public or privately owned land and to establishment resettlement camps to house these displaced people. This is significant as it gave whites power to remove Black South Africans at will and often times displaced them in impoverished settlements. This act is evidence of Black South Africans being unfairly displaced and banished from their previous ways of life. -
1951-Bantu Authorities Act No. 68
This act granted Bantustan leaders the right to "control" their own functions and also control their own communities, but in reality it gave them a false sense of empowerment as they were allowed to control the negligible amount of valueless land that they were given. Black South Africans were only given rights in these Black owned homelands. -
1953- Black Education Act No. 47
This act segregated Blacks' and Whites' schooling facilities. This act is significant because it gave way to the inferior Black South Africans would receive and encourage the poverty trend in Black South Africans. -
1959- Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act
This act labeled certain areas so that only certain ethnic groups could reside there. This is a reflection of separate states during apartheid, as well as the formation of bantustans. It furthered divisions by designating certain lands to be self-governed by various tribes. This gave the majority population (Africans) only 15% (or so) of the land.
