Chapter 1A – CCTSA

APARTHEID

FIRST PERIOD OF NATIONAL PARTY RULE

WHITE DOMINATION 1948-1958

The newly-elected National Party government of DF Malan (1948-1954) moved quickly to codify long-standing segregation laws into the rigid system of apartheid (separateness).

Malan’s successor, JG Strijdom, continued the process while championing the re-establishment of an Afrikaner Republic. He unashamedly proclaimed that his policy was ‘baasskap’ (white domination).

DF Malan

JG Strijdom

Codification of rigid segregation

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act – 1949
Population Registration Act – 1950
Suppression of Communism Act – 1950
Group Areas Act – 1950
Bantu Education Act – 1953
Removal of Coloured Franchise – 1957

Resistance to apartheid

Post-1952 Defiance Campaign
Founding of the Liberal Party – 1953
Freedom Charter – 1955
‘Treason Trials’ – 1956
Founding of the Pan Africanist Congress – 1959

International developments

Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – 1948
Racial discrimination in public schools declared illegal by the US Supreme Court – 1954
Collapse of UK and French colonial will following the Suez crisis – 1956
Independence of Ghana – 1957

Two non-white South African residents crossing a railway