In What Ways Were The Lives of Africans changed by the Policy of Apartheid in the 1950's & 1960's

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MINIVER OLIVER 10.2

SOUTH AFRICA COURSE WORK: ESSAY 2

In What Ways Were The Lives of Africans changed by the

Policy of Apartheid in the 1950’s & 1960’s

                

                In this thesis I will be explain the ways in which the lives of the black distorted. There lives were very good after the Second World War, they had everything going well for them, but it didn’t last long. The foreword of Apartheid in the 1950’s 1960’s and 1970’s destroyed this optimism. Their lives got worse and worse and they had lost charge of their lives. I will be explaining how their personal lives changed, how their movement was restricted, how their most valuable rights were taken away, how they had to live poorly and how they had lost their education as well and last of all I will be telling you which I think was the main reason for them to feel isolated.

                Black people’s lives were changed by apartheid because of the laws passed.  In 1949 The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act law was made. It increased segregation. The government made this law because they didn’t want blacks and whites to be in sexual relations or marriage relationships for they would have mixed raced children. This decision was made for them whether they liked it or not. They also wanted to get rid of blacks once and for all. You see if blacks and whites got married they would have coloured children and those children won’t be pure white to they will have black in them so this is what the government were trying to avoid. This new law destroyed a lot of their lives because families were not together anymore. It made the blacks start living in fear to love for they thought everything they did was a risk. They lost their optimistic sided and begun to believe they didn’t deserve to have rights. This put a lot of pressure on them and led them to do stupid things.

The Government were determined to classify ethnical groups, personified in the Population Registration Act in effect from 1950 to 1991, it was crucial in determining the status of South Africans in all areas of life. The act divided South Africans at birth into four racial categories--Black, White, Coloured, and Asian--though these classifications were largely random, based on considerations such as family background and cultural acceptance as well as on appearance. They wanted to make it easier for themselves when putting everyone into racial groups. The mixed race families made it a problem there was no way they could do it precisely because they weren’t white or black. One reason for this law was to stop the Cape Coloureds from being classified as whites. This made their lives worse, especially the coloured families because in most cases each member of a family was placed in a different groups which simply implies they were possibly going to see each other again, and they would have to rebuild their lives with strangers, and they also had to stand up for themselves because they had no one else. An example is the Du Proft family. Raymond Du Proft was white and Diane Bassick his wife was coloured. They fell in love but had to hide so they wouldn’t get found out. They were lucky because they had five children and weren’t caught. They tried to be accepted as whites but their claims where denied. One of their sons ended up killing himself because the government wouldn’t let him be with his white girlfriend who was pregnant.

                The movement of blacks was ever more controlled in the 1950’s. This was also a result to the laws passed. Group Areas Act of 1950 established residential and business sections in urban areas for each race, and members of other races were excluded from living, operating businesses, or owning land in them. Under the Group Areas Act (1950), the cities and towns of South Africa were divided into segregated residential and business areas, and the government removed thousands of Coloureds and Indians from areas classified for white occupation. To help enforce the segregation of the races and prevent blacks from encroaching on white areas, the government strengthened the existing pass laws, which required nonwhites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. The government did this because they wanted the good parts of the country to themselves. They also did this to destroy black and coloured communities. This law gave them the power to move blacks out of their homes and to dump them in the reserves. They stayed in power because they had a strong security police force and allowed it to treat its adversaries very ruthlessly. This there lives worse because all their jobs were being taken away and they couldn’t do any thing about, they were back to square one in the reserves. A lot of the blacks did not agree with all this so the prime minister at this time Verwoerd decided to introduce Separate development (separate but equal). He was trying to make the blacks think they would be equal. He wanted them to agree with him and then send them to the Bantustans. It was an excuse so people can accept segregation. It was said to the blacks that £104 million would be used to improve their lives but it wasn’t it was used on police force, law and order, on security to protect the whites and also on barbed wire to keep the blacks away in the reserves. The whole idea was to control the blacks without them realising it.

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The Native Laws Amendment Act also in 1950 was introduced. The government aimed to control what and where blacks went. They did this to kind of keep them out of the cities. This made their lives worse because they didn’t have their freedom anymore; they were like prisoners in their own country. It is like asking someone if you can go to the toilet in your own home. Sometimes when they needed to go to the city to maybe get some food or medical facilities they weren’t let go, which meant they had to starve for days until they were ...

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