The racist signs of Apartheid seen through rare photographs, 1950-1990

 

Few words are more closely associated with 20th-century South African history than apartheid, the Afrikaans word for "segregation" that describes the country's official system of racial segregation.

And although the discriminatory division between European-born whites and black Africans stretches back to the 19th-century era of British and Dutch imperialism, the concept of apartheid did not become law until 1953, when the white-dominated parliament passed separate facilities reservations. passed to act.

The act officially separated public places such as taxis, ambulances, hearings, buses, trains, elevators, benches, bathrooms, parks, church halls, town halls, cinemas, theatres, cafes, restaurants, hotels, schools, universities and later. done. A modification, beaches and seaside.

Apartheid is often divided into two parts: petty and grand apartheid. These South African signs shown in this article are examples of what is known as apartheid.

Petty apartheid was the most obvious side of apartheid. It was the separation of features on the basis of race. Grand apartheid refers to the inherent limits placed on black South Africans' access to land and political rights.

These were laws that prevented black South Africans from living in the same areas as white people. He also denied political representation of black Africans, and, at its most extreme, denied citizenship in South Africa.

The core of the apartheid system was to divide people into racial groups using a complex and trivial series of tests. The result was a classification of the population into one of four groups: White, Black, Indian and Coloured, with the Colored and Indian groups, further subdivided. (Group names are capitalized here to indicate their use under apartheid.)

The "pencil test" decided that if a person could hold a pencil in his hair by shaking his head, he could not be classified as white. The tests were based primarily on appearance – skin colour, facial features, appearance of head (and other) hair.

Most infamously, the "pencil test" decided that if a person could hold a pencil in their hair by shaking their head, they could not be classified as white. The tests were so accurate that members of an extended family could be classified into different racial groups.

Every year people were reclassified. In 1984, for example, 518 people of color were defined as white, two whites were called Chinese, one white was reclassified as Indian, one white was reclassified as coloured, and 89 Colored people were called black.

For political, diplomatic and economic reasons, some groups and their descendants, including Japanese, Taiwanese and South Korean immigrants, were classified as "honorary whites". Only the white group could remain free from any restrictions. All other racial groups faced petty apartheid laws.

As these signs showed, restrictions infiltrated all aspects of life. While Colored and Indian groups had access to certain privileges, the sharpest difference was between Blacks and Whites. The Separate Facility Act of 1953 stated that separate facilities should no longer be "substantially equal".

The result: substandard black-only buses serving only black-only bus stops. Only black-only ambulances stopped in our black-only hospitals. Only Black-only education was provided in inferior Black-only schools and universities. Beaches, bridges, swimming pools, washrooms, cinemas, benches, parks and even burial grounds were different.

There were some places where segregation did not take place, particularly drug-dealing nightclubs and churches. However the lack of segregation in the churches was not for lack of trying. Blacks could not attend white churches under the Church Native Law Amendment Act of 1957, but the law was largely unenforceable.

South African President P.W. Botha began to eliminate petty apartheid in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But when external and literal signs of apartheid began to be removed under Botha, the level of brutality against blacks soared.

After the end of the apartheid system in 1994, Botha was found responsible for gross human rights violations under the nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He said he has no regrets.