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Nelson Mandela
The South African activist and former president Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) helped bring an end to apartheid and has been a global advocate for human rights. A member of the African National Congress party beginning in the 1940s, he was a leader of both peaceful protests and armed resistance against the white minority’s oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa. -
Resistance of African National Congress
the African National Congress (ANC) initiated its Defiance Campaign of passive resistance. Subsequent civil disobedience protests targeted curfews, pass laws, and "petty apartheid" segregation in public facilities. -
Reference book requirement
In 1952, the government enacted an even more rigid law that required all African males over the age of 16 to carry a “reference book” containing personal information and employment history. -
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Protesting
Protest against these humiliating laws fueled the anti-apartheid struggle—from the Defiance Campaign (1952–1954) -
the massive women’s protest in Pretoria
The marchers' aims were to protest the introduction of the Apartheid pass laws for black women in 1952 and the presentation of a petition to the then Prime Minister J.G. Strijdom. -
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South African Removal
From 1960 to 1983, the apartheid government forcibly moved 3.5 million black South Africans in one of the largest mass removals of people in modern history. There were several political and economic reasons for these removals. -
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959
Abolished indirect representation of blacks in Pretoria and divided Africans into ten ethnically discrete groups, each assigned a traditional “homeland.” -
Burning of passes
police fired on a crowd of Black people, killing or wounding some 250 of them. -
Resistance of removal
In Cape Town, many informal settlements were destroyed. In one incident over four days in 1985, Africans resisted being moved from Crossroads to the new government-run Khayelitsha township farther away; 18 people were killed and 230 were injured. -
Mandela Released
Released in 1990, he participated in the eradication of apartheid and in 1994 became the first Black president of South Africa, forming a multiethnic government to oversee the country’s transition