Apartheid was beginning to rise in the late 1940’s and became nationwide during 1950’s, but Apartheid was to become even more racist and oppressive when Hendrik Verwoerd came into power as prime minister in 1958.
Apartheid was strengthened in its ‘second phase’ when Verwoerd was elected president over Daniel Malan. Of all the national party leaders Henrik Verwoerd was the most powerful and successful. He was able to create a second phase of apartheid. His aim was to make apartheid internationally respected. He was going to do this by making the blacks develop by themselves in separate ‘homelands’, which he wanted to become independent nations otherwise known as ‘Bantustans’.
During his time as prime minister of South Africa, Verwoerd introduced enforced Malan’s laws more strongly to further restrict the lives and movement for the black South Africans. One of the laws that he promoted was the group areas act. Verwoerd made this law more racist by essentially excluding any non-White from being allowed to live in established towns or to live and work in any established economically viable areas all of which were proclaimed to be White areas. It caused many non-Whites to have to commute large distances from their homes in order to be able to work. The law led to non-Whites being forcibly removed for living in the "wrong" areas.
He also created new laws to make sure that the white South Africans stayed superior to other South African citizens. These included The Promotion of Black Self-Government Act (1958). This law set up separate territorial governments in the 'homelands', designated lands for black people where they could have a vote. The aim was that these homelands would eventually become independent of South Africa. In practice, the South African government exercised a strong influence over these separate states even after some of them became 'independent'.
The Bantu Investment Corporation Act (1959) was also a second phase law. It set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create jobs there.
The concept of ‘separate development’ sought to pre-emt the need for large scale migration of people to the towns and cities, by developing the economies of the "Homelands" instead. Verwoerd believed that he had a god-given right to make South Africa a white Christian nation. He argued that a policy of economic decentralization would make for a peaceful multicultural society, with each community exercising its right of political self-determination. He thought that he needed to change apartheid because the white superiority was fading throughout the world with many black colonies becoming independent nations. He gave the blacks an opportunity to develop on their own, separately from the whites, in their homelands. If the natives wished, they could become independent nations. Verwoerd called these homelands Bantu National Units but his critics called the homelands Bantustans. In 1958 a message from Verwoerd to the people of South Africa stated:
“I am seeking justice for all groups…. The policy of separate development is designed for the happiness, security and stability provided by their home language and administration for the Bantu as well as the whites.”
The Bantustans were all extremely poor, as a result of deliberate government policies, as their boundaries were drawn to exclude valuable land and industries. Few local employment opportunities were available. Their single most important home-grown source of revenue was the provision of casinos and topless revue shows, which the National Party government had prohibited in South Africa proper as being "immoral". However, the homelands were only kept afloat by massive subsidies from the South African government; for instance, by 1985 in Transkei, 85% of the homeland's income came from direct transfer payments from Pretoria. The Bantustans' governments were invariably corrupt and little wealth trickled down to the local populations, who were forced to seek employment as so-called "guest workers" in South Africa proper. Millions of people had to work in often appalling conditions, away from their homes for months at a time. For example, 65% of Bophuthatswana's population worked outside the 'homeland'. Not surprisingly, the homelands were extremely unpopular among the urban black population, many of whom lived in squalor in slum housing. Their working conditions were often equally poor, as they were denied any significant rights or protections in South Africa proper. The allocation of individuals to specific homelands was often quite arbitrary. Many individuals assigned to homelands did not live in or originate from the homelands to which they were assigned, and the division into designated ethnic groups often took place on an arbitrary basis, particularly in the case of people of mixed ethnic ancestry.
There were many resistance efforts by the black natives and many were many protests. These protestors were treated very badly. In 1960 several thousand African protesters organized by the PAC, assembled at Sharpeville near Vereeniging to protest against the pass laws. The authorities tried to frighten them by low-flying jets, and eventually the police opened fire, killing 67 protestors and wounding another 200. There was a widespread protest and a state of emergency was proclaimed in South Africa.
There were also many other protests. Eleven miners were shot by police in the course of violent protest against working conditions in the western deep levels in the Transvaal in 1973.
At Soweto, near Johannesburg in 1976, students demonstrated against a government order that part of their education should be in the Afrikaans language. Arrests and imprisonments followed, including that of Steve Biko who, who died in police custody.
This was in some ways a new policy of Apartheid but with Verwoerd at the helm of this policy it was sure to be a whole new one. These new laws had further implications for the freedom of the black South Africans.
These laws changed the lives of the Black South Africans. The native’s attitudes recognized the unfairness of apartheid. The European minority had the best jobs, the best salaries, the best houses and the best education, and they buttressed the basic injustice by excluding all but themselves from any share in political power. They took the view that the actions and attitudes of the Europeans, degrading the natives to be no more than ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’, contradicted the basic Christian principles which the Europeans professed.
They also believed that without native labour the whole economic system would collapse, if some were communists, it was because they saw the way the capitalist class exploited them as colored proletariat.
These developments pushed the hitherto relatively conservative African National Congress into action. In 1949, they developed an agenda that for the first time advocated open resistance in the form of strikes, acts of public disobedience, and protest marches. These continued throughout the 1950s and resulted in occasional violent clashes. In June 1955, at a congress held near Kliptown, near Johannesburg, a number of organizations, including the Indian Congress and the ANC, adopted a Freedom Charter. This articulated a vision of a non-racial democratic state and is still central to the ANC's vision of a new South Africa.
Phillip Kgnosa, an ANC leader lead thirty thousand people to the gates of the prison. The police were bewidered and told him that if he got everybody home they would have a meeting with him. Kgnosa took everyone home and the next morning, he was arrested and taken to jail, where he later died. This must have been a big political blow for the Natives because Kgnosa was a leader of the ANC and everybody thought that he was going to get freedom for the Blacks until he ‘mysteriously’ died in prison.
This continued to realize the aims of the white minority to suppress the black majority population.
The increased movement of people meant that the resources available to the Black South Africans became even more overstretched.
Apartheid was strengthened even more during the 1970’s. The Group Areas Act was enforced more strictly and it heightened the forced movement of the black South Africans.
Mark Mathabanes father was taken out of his home because his pass was in bad condition and was beaten and arrested and taken to jail. This is just one of the horrific treatments to blacks because of the strengthened Apartheid.
During the 1970s, the government implemented a policy of 'resettlement', to force people to move to their designated 'group areas'. Some argue that over three and a half million people were forced to resettle during this period. The victims of these removals included:
-Labour tenants on white-owned farms.
-The inhabitants of the so-called 'black spots', areas of African-owned land surrounded by white farms.
-The families of workers living in townships close to the homelands.
-'Surplus people' from urban areas. This included thousands of people from the Western Cape (which was declared a 'Colored Labour Preference Area'). These people were moved to the Transkei and Ciskei homelands.
These people were put into resettlement camps with very bad conditions. An example of one of these camps is the ‘welcome valley’ camp. The bad conditions included corrugated iron toilets, poor sanitation and no fertile land to grow crops. This affected the Black South Africans because the conditions were inhumane and were almost impossible to live in. Some Black South Africans went to squatter camps. An example of one of the squatter camps for the Black South Africans is ‘Unibel squatter camp’. Unibel was a squatter camp with 25,000 people near Cape Town. There was no hope or employment in the countryside (where they were supposed to be) and could not live in the towns. Bulldozers destroyed these squatter homes and the Black South Africans were harassed and there was much violence, mainly towards the Natives. This must have been very frustrating for the blacks because the government were constantly moving the Black South Africans from their homes.
In conclusion, the information above in this assignment was relevant to the title question because I have described the way that the Black South African’s lives were changed during the policy of apartheid.
During the era of the 1950’s, 1960’s and the 1970’s the lives of the Black South Africans steadily got worse due to the South African government’s racial policies. Every Black South African was required to carry a passbook. These passbooks restricted the rights of blacks to enter ‘white' areas, and were the latest in a long series of legal limitations imposed on Black South Africans by the minority white government. Compared to the United States of America which saw radical changes in the law to bring about equality, for the South African blacks the oppression worsened and it was another thirty years before the white government finally acknowledged equality.
The policies made life worse for the Back South Africans because they restricted their movements and were subject to special taxation. Further laws ensured that blacks could compete economically with the whites and also prohibited them from owning land.
Before the 1950’s, South Africa was still a segregated society but the Black South Africans lived peacefully as long as they conceded to the white people’s wishes. Gradually the policy of the government were legalized which gave complete power to the whites.
The new policies gave great power to White South Africans and they enjoyed freedom to do as they wished and acquire great wealth.
