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Group Areas Act
First, during the 1950s and 1960s, large-scale removals of Africans, Indians, and Coloureds were carried out to implement the Group Areas Act, which mandated residential segregation throughout the country. More than 860,000 people were forced to move in order to divide and control racially-separate communities at a time of growing organized resistance to apartheid in urban areas; the removals also worked to the economic detriment of Indian shop owners. -
Michigan State University, summary of the Pass Laws
Pass laws were designed to control the movement of Africans under apartheid. These laws evolved from regulations imposed by the Dutch and British in the 18th and 19th-century slave economy of the Cape Colony. In the 19th century, the new pass laws were enacted for the purpose of ensuring a reliable supply of cheap, docile African labor for the gold and diamond mines. -
a “reference book”
a “reference book” containing personal information and employment history. Africans often were compelled to violate the pass laws to find work to support their families, so harassment, fines, and arrests under the pass laws were a constant threat to many urban Africans. -
Defiance Campaign
Defiance Campaign (1952–1954), the massive women’s protest in Pretoria (1956), to burning of passes at the police station in Sharpeville where 69 protesters were massacred (1960). -
freedom charter
On June 26, 1955, the Freedom Charter was adopted, a document drafted in secrecy that demands the achievement of a democratic, free and multiracial society. On December 5, 1956, he was arrested along with 155 people and sent to trial for high treason. -
The Bantustans (also known as “homelands”)
The Bantustans (also known as “homelands”) were a cornerstone of the “grand apartheid” policy of the 1960s and 1970s, justified by the apartheid government as benevolent “separate development.” The Bantustans were created by the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959, which abolished indirect representation of blacks in Pretoria and divided Africans into ten ethnically discrete groups, each assigned a traditional “homeland.” -
description of forced removal efforts
From 1960 to 1983, the apartheid government forcibly moved 3.5 million black South Africans in one of the largest mass removals of people in modern history. There were several political and economic reasons for these removals. -
Judge Quartus de Wet found Mandela and other activists guilty
On June 12, 1964, Judge Quartus de Wet found Mandela and other activists guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment, they were sent to Robben Island, where they remained for 18 years. Mandela was confined in a damp cell, and with a palm mat to sleep. Despite being in prison Mandela was visited by well-known South African personalities. -
arrested time
In the 1970s and 1980s, many Africans found in violation of past laws were stripped of citizenship and deported to poverty-stricken rural “homelands.” By the time the increasingly expensive and ineffective pass laws were repealed in 1986, they had led to more than 17 million arrests. -
African National Congress
On July 6, 1991, Mandela would be appointed as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) by acclamation and be the successor of Oliver Tambo. On May 15, 1992, he received the Prince of Asturias of International Cooperation. A year later, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.