Apartheid legislation

From the 1950s onwards, various laws were passed to keep the races apart and suppress resistance. The practice of apartheid retained many of the features of the segregationist policies of earlier administrations. Examples include the 1913 Land Act and the various workplace colour bars.

National Party leaders argued that South Africa did not comprise a single nation, but was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, coloured and Indian. These groups were split further into thirteen "nations" or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups. Legislation had the result of making the white race the dominant one.

The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows:

The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.

The Population Registration Act of 1950 formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of eighteen, specifying their racial group. Also in 1950 the Group Areas Act partitioned the country into areas allocated to different racial groups. This law was the basis upon which political and social separation was constructed. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks and was the first piece of legislation established to support the government's plan of separate development in the Bantustans. Further legislation in 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shackland slums and forced white employers to pay for the construction of housing for those black workers who were permitted to reside in "white" cities. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 prohibited people of different races from using the same public amenities, such as restaurants, public swimming pools, and restrooms. Further laws had the aim of suppressing resistance, especially armed resistance, to apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the South African Communist Party and any other political party that the government chose to label as 'communist'. Disorderly gatherings were banned, as were certain organizations that were deemed threatening to the government.

An act of 1956 formalised racial discrimination in employment, while in 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the National Party's policy of nominally independent "homelands" for black people. So-called "self–governing Bantu units" were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of autonomy and self-government. The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create employment there.

In 1953, the Bantu Education Act crafted a separate system of education for African students and in 1959 separate universities were created for blacks, coloureds and Indians. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. Legislation of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in "white" cites and redirect such development to the "homelands". The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of the black so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa, but became citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure whites became the demographic majority within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans choose "independence". The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands.

To oversee the apartheid legislation, the bureaucracy expanded, and, by 1977, there were more than half a million white state employees.