Essay about Nelson Mandela Worked to End Apartheid in South Africa

In both America and South Africa, the schism between Africans and their government worsened. Even though both nations gained independence from Britain, the colonial mindset was persistent and continued to victimize other races. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery, the United States’ Congress passed the Jim Crow Laws. In other words, these laws ensured that “blacks . . . had more in common with African-American slaves . . . than with the [Caucasian businessmen]” (Bausum 2012, 19). Similarly, South Africa’s National Party in 1948 legalized apartheid – South Africa’s brand of segregation. More specifically, these laws isolated races into separate buildings and enforced racial purity. To make matters worse, segregation ensnared coloured people in poverty by depriving them of quality government services. For instance, in both countries intermarriage was a crime. Also, the African-American garbage men received insufficient salaries that “[were] based on their garbage routes” rather than an hourly wage (Bausum 2012, 14). In

Racism, discrimination and degradation faced by Blacks and other ethnic minorities under the apartheid system was not unlike the segregation and intimidation faced by African-Americans in the Jim Crow south. Jim Crow system of segregation that kept Blacks from fully participating in public and civic activities and relegated African-Americans to substandard conditions at work, school and even in the home. Blacks in South Africa were under the clutches of an overt, national policy of racism and segregation implemented by the country’s highest level of government. Civil and human rights abuses of Blacks in South Africa at the hand of the country’s white minority occurred long before apartheid officially began, but the system’s official start brought strict, sweeping laws such as the rule that all persons in South Africa to be categorized as white, Black, colored and Indian, without exception. Like in the U.S. during Jim Crow, Blacks and whites were not allowed to marry and sexual relations between members of different races was a criminal offense.

The focal point of this investigation assessment will be “How significant was Nelson Mandela’s role in the culmination of Apartheid system in South Africa during 20th century?” In order to evaluate Mandela’s significance, the investigation is based on his role in each stage of the consummation of this segregator system by which the white minority in the country wanted to preserve the power, so they established all kinds of laws that covered, in general, social aspects during the National Party performance in 1948. Thus, the letters from Mandela to Hendrik Verwoerd regarded as the mastermind behind socially engineering and implementing the racial policies of apartheid, and the Speech to the Foreign Policy Association are sources of a peculiar importance to this investigation, due to the evidence of struggle and resignation that Mandela feel as a leader. People forget how hard the struggle was to be for decades afterwards. The resistance and revolution had been closed down, leaders such as Mandela imprisoned, tortured, banned or

This paper will be outlining the basic structure of the laws that segregated the black population of South Africa throughout the 1900’s. It will also be explaining important people involved in the dismantling of apartheid and the foreign nations that helped to influence South Africa’s government to change. However, the primary goal for this paper is to inform the reader about the reasoning behind apartheid, the events leading up to it, and how it was reformed.

The South African Apartheid, instituted in 1948 by the country’s Afrikaner National Party, was legalized segregation on the basis of race, and is a system comparable to the segregation of African Americans in the United States. Non-whites - including blacks, Indians, and people of color in general- were prohibited from engaging in any activities specific to whites and prohibited from engaging in interracial marriages, receiving higher education, and obtaining certain jobs. The National Party’s classification of “race” was loosely based on physical appearance and lineage. White individuals were superficially defined as being “obviously white'' on the basis of their “habits, education and speech as well as deportment and demeanor”; an

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.

South African Apartheid was the government enforced policy of extreme segregation and discrimination which lasted from 1948 to 1991; this affected both Black and Asian citizens of South Africa and deprived them of their basic human rights. Before Apartheid, South Africa already had conditions that were comparable to segregation in the United States: there were laws restricting voting, buying land, and jobs. The National Party in South Africa is the all-white government party that gained power through white supremacy and white nationalism, and they believed that they had a God-given right to control Africa. The implementation of Apartheid by the government of South Africa was a disastrous decision that negatively affected non-European citizens

Also, blacks were treated much lesser than whites in the south. Public school in Atlanta, Georgia spent $570 on every white student and $228 on every black student, and since blacks weren't getting a good education, the only jobs they could get were maids, laborers, and farm workers (12). Overall, because of segregation in the South, black school conditions were exactly the opposite of the nice whites only public schools.

Apartheid affected the majority of South Africans of dignity, opportunity and the right to freedom. People were denied citizenship rights, dispossessed of their land and deprived from quality jobs.

South Africa was a bad place at this time. Where people were seperated based on their skin color. They where seperated in four groups black, white, coloured, and asian. Black made 71% of the population. White made 16% of the population. Coloured made 10% of the population. Lastly Asian made 3% of the population.

Apartheid was the slogan for the National Party, representing Afrikaners. The slogan was a platform of racism and segregation. This policy cruelly and forcibly separated people, and had a fearsome state apparatus to punish those who fought against it. What made the policy unique was it made segregation part of the law (History.com Staff). Apartheid was seen as worse than segregation because it was introduced in a period when other countries were moving away from racist policies. All Government action and response was decided according to the policy of apartheid. In South Africa the white people are in the minority, and many were worried that they would lose their jobs, culture and language which explain how people were thinking (History.com Staff). Here we observe how the whites responded in a time where they felt a need to “protect the weaker members from exploitation” and set forth moral rules that would be imposed and enforced upon everyone to act a particular way in society (Melchin, pg 21).

One large problem that occurred because of apartheid and was the cause of many protests was from 1961-1994, 3.5 million colored people and their families were forced out of their homes while their property was sold for very low prices to white farmers. This was just one example of events that were completely unfair to the colored population. Nelson Mandela was the person who stopped these acts from happening. In 1994, Mandela became the country’s first colored president. Instead of trying to make the people who put him into jail for 27 years suffer in consequences, he embraced them and used peace to unite everyone as equals, and not oppressing the people who had oppressed him for most of his life. Apartheid was a very rough time for anyone who lived in South Africa before Nelson Mandela and his peace helped to stop it.

The government of South Africa played a huge role in apartheid. During apartheid the government of South Africa worked to take away the citizenship of the Blacks with the laws (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). “Social rights, political rights, educational opportunities, and economic status were all determined by the group a person belonged to” (History of South Africa in the apartheid era). Black people were denied by the government the option of appealing courts against forced removals (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Since the government had established laws prohibiting social contact between the races separate schools and public places were set up for the different races (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). The government even tried to segregate churches in 1957 but failed (Pascoe, 80)

The apartheid began in the year 1948. The reasoning behind the Apartheid is so that the government could cement their leadership. Black South Africans were affected by the Apartheid. Life for Black South Africans was very difficult. Blacks were treated like property. They were forced to live in a certain place. They did not have the right to vote or travel freely. Races such as “black” and “white” are not allowed to marry, even if they wanted to.

Apartheid was a system which segregated and oppressed the non-whites. White people where superior than any other race. People were treated according to their racial group. This affected black communities, they lived under harsh conditions and in fear. Even though black South Africans were segregated by this system and lived in their own communities, on their own, as In Sindisiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother. Black South Africans still experienced lawless violence, forced removals, discrimination and government brutality in their communities.