Apartheid in South Africa

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Blacks shared the pain of Apartheid in one of the darkest periods in history. Blacks were horribly oppressed by tyrants who obliterated their happy, healthy lives for nothing more then their own interests. Many Laws were passed that restricted blacks from the freedoms that all people should rightfully obtain from birth. White South Africans took the black population by the throat, making it hard for blacks to live as happy people. Black South Africans were held in a form of imprisonment and could do little to fight back, causing Apartheid to be one of the darkest periods in black history.
Apartheid was introduced as a part of the National Party’s campaign in the 1948 elections. With the National Party victory, Apartheid became a national political policy in South Africa. In Apartheid people were classified according to three major racial groups: white, Bantu, or black Africans. This new law brought about new ways of life; where people worked, where they could go, and who they interacted with. Eventually, some labeled South Africa as a “police state” (Dowling 17) because of the harsh punishment for those who opposed the law and how blacks were unjustly treated.
From the start, Apartheid looked grim, and hardly influential organizations like the African National Congress were the only defenses blacks had. White dominance was so powerful that, in time, it began to engulf the hopes of the blacks that wished for racial equality. Whites brought harsh justice to those who opposed there plans of superiority in South Africa.
The national party brought forth the idea of apartheid as part of their campaign in the 1948 elections, and with the national party’s victory, apartheid became the political policy for South Africa. In the 1950’s after apartheid became the official policy, the African National Congress declared that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white” (Johnson 544), and worked to abolish apartheid.
Black South Africans and others who tried to fight apartheid were stopped quickly and often violently. Thousands were thrown in prison and hundreds were tortured and murdered by the police. White South African leaders looked away, even though these acts were against the law, they wanted white people to stay in power. These punishments were horrible, leading prisoners to believe suicide was the better way out. Families were separated because ...

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...e law. In an effort to stop protesting, blacks were yet again relocated from nicer areas to impoverished Bantustans (homelands). In 1974 the United Nations expelled South Africa from the Olympics (Dowling 19). Throughout the 1870’s the government started creating new reforms that only changed the look of apartheid laws and did nothing to help blacks. In 1977 Steven Biko is arrested and killed in police custody. He was one of the leaders of many protests and considered a threat to the government. After this incident, the United Nations issued a mandatory arms embargo in an effort to prevent any further casualties (Dowling 19). In the late 1970’s liberations fights rose within black communities and they began gaining a threshold on freedom.
The Black South Africans did well to fight the laws that segregated them from white society. They also endured throughout the time the unfair treatment was poured upon them by the White South Africans. They were able to live and fight back in the impoverished conditions they were in, and in the poor state of freedom they were given. Toward the end of apartheid, it was their whole hearted resistance that kept them alive, and out of the darkness.

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