The system of apartheid (1948–1994)

The National Party, representing Afrikaner nationalism, won the 1948 election and began implementing apartheid ("apartness" in Afrikaans).

Major apartheid laws

• Population Registration Act (1950): classified every South African as white, Black, Colored (mixed race), or Asian/Indian
• Group Areas Act (1950): separate residential areas; Black South Africans forced into townships or rural "homelands"
• Bantu Education Act (1953): inferior education for Black South Africans
• Pass laws: required Black South Africans to carry identity passes documenting their right to be in white areas
• Bantustans: rural "homelands" theoretically created as independent states (recognized by no other nation); used to strip Black South Africans of citizenship
• Sexual relations and marriage between races were prohibited