Apartheid laws
It is possible here only to indicate the most important of the innumerable apartheid acts.
1. 1948: The Asiatic Laws Amendment Act withdrew Indian representation in parliament.
2. 1949: (a) The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act made marriages between whites and non- whites illegal.
3. The Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act excluded from available
benefits all those whose earnings did not exceed £l82 a year (the
majority of African workers) and all immigratory workers irrespective
of their earnings.
4. 1950: (a) The Population Registration Act established a racial
register of the population, which was to be classified into Europeans,
Coloureds, Africans and Asians, with Coloureds and Africans further
classified according to ethnic sections.
(b) The Suppression of Communism Act defined communism so loosely as to
include much liberal and democratic thought and practice and laid down
a penalty of ten years' imprisonment for advocating 'communism'.
5. The Immorality Amendment Act prohibited sexual intercourse between white and non-white.
6. The Group Areas Act, amended on numerous occasions, provided for the
creation of separate areas throughout the country, in which ownership
and occupation of land would be restricted to a specified, population
group. The vast bulk of the country (86 per cent) was to be reserved
for the whites, and hundreds of thousands of people, nearly all non-
whites, would have to give up their homes and move together areas.
7. 1952: The Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of
Documents) Act required all African men and women to carry reference
books (a euphemism for passes) at all times. On average since 1953 over
a thousand Africans a day were arrested for not carrying passes.
8. 1953: (a) The Bantu Education Act 1953 and the Extension of
Universities Education Act 1959 enforced separation of races in all
educational institutions. Even universities were made 'tribal', and
many mission schools had to close.
(b) The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act permitted any person in
charge of any public premises or public vehicle to reserve them for the
exclusive use of any race.
c) The Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act outlawed strikes by African workers.
(d) The Criminal Law Amendment Act provided five years' imprisonment
and/or ten lashes for anyone causing anyone else to break the law in
protest against the apartheid laws, and was the direct result of the
Defiance Campaign (sec below).
9. The Public Safety Act gave powers to the government to declare a state of emergency and suspend parliament and the courts.
10. 1954: The Natives Resettlement Act provided for the forcible
removal of 57 000 Africans from central Johannesburg to 'Soweto' and to
segregate them there along 'tribal' patterns.
11. The Native Trust and Land Amendment Act removed the obligation on the government to find land for displaced squatters.
12. 1955: The Criminal Procedure and Evidence Amendment Act empowered
the police to enter and search premises without a warrant.
13. 1956: The Industrial Conciliation Act prohibited mixed trade unions
and reserved certain jobs for different races. It guaranteed work for
whites at the expense of non-whiles and relegated Africans to manual
work. This was an election winner, due to the number of poor-white
unemployed.
14. 1957: The Native Laws Amendment Act restricted freedom of worship
by allowing the Minister of Native Affairs to ban the attendance of
Africans at any church service in a white area.
15. The Nursing Act introduced apartheid into the nursing profession.
16. 1959: The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act abolished African
representation in parliament and outlined procedures for setting up
so-called 'self government' in the Reserves (see below),
17. 1960: The Unlawful Organizations Act banned the African National Congress and the Pan- Africanist Congress.
18. 1962: The General Law Amendment Act (1962), generally known as the
'Sabotage Act', provided death as the maximum penalty for sabotage, and
introduced house arrest.
19. 1963: The Undesirable Publications Act provided for the prohibition
of publications on both political and moral grounds. Among the titles
banned was Thomas Hardy novel The Return of the Native, about English
rural life in the nineteenth century'' More seriously, the banned
titles contain 8000 works which contradict racial apartheid and the
rigid Calvinistic Dutch Reformed Church.
20. The General Law Amendment Act (1963) outlawed law itself. It
empowered the Minister of Justice to detain anyone, without charge or
trial, for indefinitely recurring periods of 90 days. This 'No-Trial
Act' marked the final disappearance of the rule of law and of habeas
corpus from South Africa. The opposition United Party voted for the
bill on its second reading, contenting itself with opposing certain
clauses in the committee stage.
21. 1964: The Bantu Laws Amendment Act deprived Africans living and
working in 'white' areas of any right to remain there. Under this Act
government-control fed labour bureaus were given absolute power to
direct African workers to specific jobs, or to cancel their permits to
live and work in a 'white' area - even if they had been born in the
'white' area.
22. 1970: The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act made every African a
citizen of an ethnic homeland, where he might exercise his civil and
political rights. The Act reinforced the government policy that an
African had no rights in white South Africa, except to sell his labour.
National Movements and New States in Africa