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Apartheid in South Africa
1948–1994; Mandela freed 1990, elected president 1994· Event· Middle East & Africa
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
A system of legally enforced racial segregation and white minority rule in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s.
See it on the History map →What happened
Elected in 1948 by a nearly all-white electorate, the National Party wrote apartheid ('separateness' in Afrikaans) into law. Every person was classified by race; laws controlled where people could live, work, marry and travel, enforced by pass books. About 3.5 million were forcibly moved, many to rural 'homelands'. Protest met force, as at Sharpeville in 1960. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. Under internal revolt and foreign sanctions, President F. W. de Klerk freed him in 1990; all-race elections followed in 1994.
Why it matters
Its negotiated end avoided full civil war, and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission became a model for countries confronting past abuses.
Think of it like
Like a zoning code applied to people: the 1950 Group Areas Act assigned each neighborhood to one race and evicted everyone else.
How we know
The apartheid laws themselves, government records, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's hearings and 1998 report, press photographs, and testimony of activists and victims.
Still debated
Historians debate how much sanctions, versus internal protest, economic decline and the end of the Cold War, pushed the regime to negotiate.
Connections (2)
▸Apartheid in South Africa held out against the African independence waveMostly agreed
The connection
As most of Africa won independence and majority rule, South Africa's white-minority government tightened apartheid, its system of legal racial segregation. It left the Commonwealth in 1961 and, with Rhodesia and Portugal's colonies, formed a white-ruled bloc in the south. Newly independent states backed the ANC and pushed sanctions until apartheid ended in 1994.
When and how
Southern Africa, 1960–1994; British prime minister Harold Macmillan's 1960 'wind of change' speech in Cape Town warned South Africa's parliament of the tide.
How sure are we?
Government records, UN sanctions resolutions and the speeches of leaders such as Macmillan and Nelson Mandela document the standoff.
Debates and open questions
How much sanctions and the end of the Cold War, versus internal resistance and economic strain, ended apartheid is debated.
▸Apartheid in South Africa drew condemnation and an arms embargo from the United NationsWell documented
The connection
The UN General Assembly condemned apartheid repeatedly from the 1950s, called for sanctions in 1962, and declared it a crime against humanity in 1973. In 1977 the Security Council imposed a mandatory arms embargo, its first against a member state. South Africa was barred from taking part in the General Assembly from 1974 until 1994.
When and how
UN headquarters in New York, from the first General Assembly debate in 1952 through 1994; the UN Special Committee against Apartheid led the campaign from 1963.
How we know
General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 418 (1977), and UN records of South Africa's return to full participation in 1994.
Debates and open questions
How much UN pressure, versus private divestment, internal revolt and the end of the Cold War, brought apartheid down is still debated.