Transcript Slide 1

Apartheid in South Africa
Tracing the history of South
Africa…
1. What events stick out as the
most important?
2. What comparisons can you
make to other events/people in
history?
As you view the stations, consider the
following:
•Which station would make the best movie?
•Which station would make the best news
headline?
•What is the most powerful image?
•What conclusions might you draw about
how South Africa has changed?
Station1
A black South African shows his passbook issued by the
government. Blacks were required to carry passes that
determined where they could live and work.
Houses in Soweto, a
black township.
Adolescents in Transkei. Their faces are painted
white and they are swathed in blankets as part of
puberty rights. Transkei was one of the ten so-called
black "homelands" created around the country since
1913. The United Nations condemned the creation of
such areas as a means of promoting the inhumane
policies of apartheid.
Station 2
Statement by the National Party of South Africa, March 29,
1948
There are two sections of thought in South Africa in regard to
the policy affecting the non-European community. On the one
hand there is the policy of equality, which advocates equal
rights….
On the other hand there is the policy of separation (apartheid)
which has grown from the experience of established European
population of the country, and which is based on the Christian
principles of Justice and reasonableness.
Its aim is the maintenance and protection of the European
population of the country as a pure White race….
Either we must follow the course of equality, which must
eventually mean national suicide for the White race, or we must
take the course of separation (apartheid) through which the
character and the future of every race will be protected and
safeguarded with full opportunities for development and selfmaintenance in their own ideas….
Station 3
Statement by the National Party of South Africa, March 29,
1948 Continued
The party believes [in] a definite policy of separation (apartheid)
between the White races and the non-White racial groups….
All marriages between Europeans and non-Europeans
will be prohibited.
The State will exercise complete supervision over the
molding of the youth.
The Coloured community takes a middle position
between the European and the Natives. A policy of
separation (apartheid) between the Europeans and
Coloureds and between Natives and Coloureds will be
applied in the social, residential, industrial and political
spheres.
The Coloured community will be represented in the
Senate by a European representative to be appointed by
the Government
Station 4
Children of Soweto, a Black
township some ten miles away
from Johannesburg, in 1982. The
Zulu world "Amandla" scrawled on
the wall means "Power". This has
been adopted as a rallying call in
the struggle for Black rights.
UN Resolution 1598: On Race Conflict in South Africa, 1961
The General Assembly,
Segregated public
facilities in
Johannesburg, 1985.
Station 4
The Government of South Africa has failed to revise its racial policies. Therefore, the UN
•Requests all States to consider taking action to bring about the abandonment of these policies;
•Affirms that the racial policies being pursued by the Government of South Africa are a flagrant violation
of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Station 5
Mourners at a funeral ceremony for those
who were killed by the South African
police in the 1985 International Day for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The
day commemorates the anniversary of the
March 21, 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
"the Native mentality does not
allow them to gather for a peaceful
demonstration. For them to gather
means violence."
Sharpeville Massacre – 69 people killed (8
women, 10 children)
"Nothing, not even the most
sophisticated weapon, not even the most
brutally efficient policy, no, nothing will
stop people once they are determined to
achieve their freedom and their right to
humanness. "
-Desmond Tutu
Station 6
Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931-) was the first Black Archbishop of Capetown, the head of the Anglican
Church in South Africa. Tutu used this position to speak out against Apartheid. In 1984 he was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize. Shortly afterwards he gave following speech, attacking South Africa's racial
policies, to the United Nations Security Council.
…there is little freedom in this land of plenty.
So the unrest is continuing, in a kind of war of attrition…. And the root cause is apartheid -- a vicious,
immoral and totally evil, and unchristian system.
White South Africans are not demons; they are ordinary human beings, scared human beings, many of
them; who would not be, if they were outnumbered five to one? I wish to appeal to my white fellow South
Africans to share in building a new society, for blacks are not intent on driving whites into the sea but on
claiming only their rightful place in the sun in the land of their birth.
We deplore all forms of violence, the violence of an oppressive and unjust society and the violence of
those seeking to overthrow that society, for we believe that violence is not the answer to the crisis of our
land.
Station 7
Umkhonto We Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation") was founded partly in response to the notorious Sharpeville Massacre of
March 1960. Its leader, Nelson Mandela, was to be arrested shortly after this manifesto was published, eventually being
sentenced to life in prison, though he was released in 1990, with the end of apartheid.
On 16th December, 1961, Umkhonto We Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC, made it known that we, the oppressed people
of South Africa, would fight for our rights. We made this known not only with words. Dynamite blasts announced it.
The truth is very different from what the newspapers have reported. Our men are armed and trained freedom-fighters, not
"terrorists." The fighting will go on in Rhodesia and South Africa.
Why we fight
The white oppressors have stolen our land. They have destroyed our families.
We burrow into the belly of the earth to dig out gold, diamonds, coal, uranium. The white oppressors and foreign
investors grab all this wealth.
In the factories, on the farms, on the railways, wherever you go, the hard, dirty, dangerous, badly paid jobs are ours.
The best jobs are for whites only.
Our homes are hovels; those of the whites are luxury mansions, flats and farmsteads.
There are not enough schools for our children; the standard of education is low, and we have to pay for it. But the
government uses our taxes and the wealth we create to provide free education for white children.
We have tried every way to reason with the white supremacists. We also organized mass demonstrations, passburnings, peaceful stay-at-homes.
Strikers and demonstrators were shot in cold blood. Our organization, the African National Congress, was outlawed.
Our meetings, journals and leaflets were prohibited.
What we fight for
We are fighting for democracy--majority rule--the right of the Africans to rule Africa. We are fighting for a South Africa in which
there will be peace and harmony and equal rights for all people.
Station 8
Umbulwana, Natal in 1982.
Umbulwana was called "a black spot" because it
is in a "white" area. It was eventually demolished
and the inhabitants forced to move to identically
numbered houses in "resettlement" villages in
their designated "homelands." Millions of black
South Africans were forcibly "resettled" in this
way.
A girl looking through a window of her shack, 1978.
Black boys looking in on a game of
soccer at an all-white school in
Johannesburg.
Government
spending, about 10 times more for
white children than for black, clearly
revealed the gross inequality
designed to perpetuate white
economic and political power. Illtrained
teachers,
overcrowded
classrooms, inadequate recreational
facilities were normal for black
children, if in fact they had any
schooling available at all.
Station 9
A passbook that the South African blacks were
required to carry.
South African police at Alexandra Township
in 1985.
Station
10
A voter casts her ballot in a polling station
in April 1994.
South Africans lining up to vote in
the 1994 election: the first time
indigenous Africans could vote.
Nelson Mandela, President of the African
National Congress (ANC), casting the
ballot in his country's first all-race
elections, in April 1994, South Africa.
Station 11
New York Times
16 April 2003
South Africa Will Pay $3,900 to Apartheid Victims’
Families
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said today that his
government would pay reparations totaling $85 million to
more than 19,000 victims of apartheid crimes who testified
about their suffering before the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission.