How Successful were the Methods used to Fight Apartheid in South Africa?
This essay will be discussing Apartheid and what methods were used to fight it, also whether they were successful or not. The word Apartheid is an Afrikaans word for apart or separateness. This was a law put in place by an Afrikaans Prime Minister called Dr. Daniel Malan, Dr. Malan put this law in place in 1948 to keep the Afrikaans race pure of any Black or Coloured blood, and there was always separation between blacks and whites but this law made it legal and legitimate. Apartheid was generally just a different approach to segregation. Blacks and Coloureds were not allowed to do certain things that they could do before the apartheid. As time went on the Apartheid laws got worse and worse because the White race had to keep in control over the black population even though the white were in major minority, such as the Group Areas Act (1950) this law divided South Africa into different areas based on race White people had larger more fertile areas when Black and Coloureds were forced into small shanty towns. Another law that was constantly resisted was the Native Act (1952) which was every non- white person at the age of 16 and over had to carry a pass book, this had 96 pages with all sorts of information but the most important was the page that states the owners, job, name, fingerprint and race. If a non-white person was found without their pass book would be arrested. There were many Black and Coloured South African people who hated apartheid and fought it in many ways and different methods. (aylett 8-10).
One method of fighting apartheid was demonstrations, such as the one at Sharpeville. On March 21st there was an anti-pass demonstration in the small township of Sharpeville, a crowd of black citizens grouped around the police office to protest. It was uncertain whether the crowd was violent or peaceful but it was certain that in the