Transcript Slide 1

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1960
Anti-Apartheid group protests against pass
laws, want them repealed
• After, demonstrators gathered in Sharpeville &
stoned policemen  attack
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Policemen brutally attack protestors
Government declares a state of emergency
for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead, 187
people wounded and over 11,000 arrested.
**Reports of this incident brought the apartheid
system into worldwide criticism!**
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Non-white students attended separate schools
Learned only skills to become low-wage workers
(factory worker, miner, gardener, maid)
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Overcrowded
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Required uniforms, textbooks
 Physical punishments
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Conducted in Afrikaans
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Caused outrage
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June 1976
Growing frustration with apartheid system
Spark: government enforces language
requirements
• schools must be taught in Afrikaans
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Soweto (Township in Johannesburg)
students boycotted
Police opened fire on unarmed students
~500 deaths
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Blacks begin political protest, mainly peaceful
Various groups formed
Often violently ended
People imprisoned and tortured, sometimes murdered
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ANC: organization that fought apartheid
(primarily peacefully)
Main leader: Nelson Mandela
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Peaceful activist
Leader of the ANC
Given life sentence
Managed to continue “leading” the
movement from jail
Freed after 27 years imprisoned
on Robben Island
Nobel Peace Prize winner
First President of the New South
Africa (1994)
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"I have fought against white domination,
and I have fought against black
domination. I have cherished the ideal of a
democratic and free society in which all
persons live together in harmony and with
equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I
hope to live for and to achieve. But, if need
be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to
die."
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Violence, protests escalate
State of emergency
Protests succeed: Mandela released!
Negotiations between Prime Minister de Klerk
& Mandela
• De Klerk repeals most of the laws that allowed for
the apartheid system to continue, including the
Population Registration Act
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Democracy!
• New Constitution adopted, giving blacks rights.
Took effect in 1994
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Election: June 1994
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Mandela becomes the president of the new
South Africa, the “Rainbow Nation”
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African National Congress has won most
elections
Employment Equity Act (1998)
◦ Opened up job opportunities to ALL South Africans,
regardless of ethnicity or race
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Education, rural areas improving
Still, a lot of poverty
◦ Slow growth of the economy
◦ Both whites & blacks are struggling to find jobs
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Struggle for health care
◦ South Africa has the highest number of people
living with HIV/AIDS in the world