Apartheid

Verwoerd and the Bantustans

Laws passed in 1950 forced a separation of non-whites from whites in South African society. The first, the Population Registration Act, which had people register with a racial classification board to determine "officially" if they belonged to one of four racial groups: white, African, colored, or Indian. The second, the Group Areas Act, relocated the different races the few mixed-race communities into segregated areas; the non-white immigrants, especially the Africans, were ordered to carry passbooks to go from place to place in white areas. [1] Likewise, whites were ordered to relocate from the areas which they settled, that historically belonged to blacks.

Dr. Hendrik F Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa from 1957 until 1966, designed a system that expanded the scope and impact of apartheid. Blacks were given a increased education which guaranteed them many job opportunities as well as the opportunity to attend a university. 5 Black universities were created en financed by the white government during the 1960s.. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, passed in 1953, ordered the segregation of blacks and whites at all public facilities, including post offices, public transportation, beaches, sports venues, parks, toilets, and even cemeteries. [2]

"There is no place for him [the African] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labor. Within his own community, however, all doors are open." Hendrik F. Verwoerd (1954) [3]

Verwoerd had also insisted, and succeeded in getting, limited self-administration in the black homelands of the Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and KwaZulu, which meant they were semi-autonomous. This had also meant that the homelands were now responsible for their own societal and economic problems; it also had the benefit for the white-controlled South African government that a huge majority of blacks in the country were no longer citizens, and therefore ineligible to vote, however, all blacks gained full voting rights in the bantustans. [4]