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Bantu Stephen Biko OMSG was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.
The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa. After demonstrating against anti-black pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 black protesters went to the police station. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd: some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police and that the mood had turned "ugly". The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled.
Helen Suzman, OMSG, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. She represented a series of liberal and centre-left opposition parties during her 36-year tenure in the whites-only, National Party-controlled House of Assembly of South Africa at the height of apartheid.
Hillbrow is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime.
In South Africa under apartheid, and South West Africa, pass laws served as an internal passport system designed to racially segregate the population, restrict movement of individuals, and allocate low-wage migrant labor. Also known as the natives' law, these laws severely restricted the movements of Black South African and other racial groups by confining them to designated areas. Initially applied to African men, attempts to enforce pass laws on women in the 1910s and 1950s sparked significant protests. Pass laws remained a key aspect of the country's apartheid system until their effective termination in 1986. The pass document used to enforce these laws was derogatorily referred to as the dompas.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. In this minoritarian system, there was social stratification and campaigns of marginalization such that white citizens had the highest status, with them being followed by Indians as well as Coloureds and then Black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.
The Soweto uprising, also known as the Soweto riots, was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa during apartheid that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.
Red Dust is a 2004 British drama film starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor and directed by Tom Hooper.
Dimbaza is a township in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, located in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, 20 kilometres (12 mi) northwest of King William's Town on the R63 road to Alice and Fort Beaufort. As of 2011, it had a population of 21,783.
Negotiations to end apartheid began in 1990 and continued until President Nelson Mandela's electoral victory as South Africa's first Black president in the first democratic all-races general election of 1994. This signified the legislative end of apartheid in South Africa, a system of widespread racially-based segregation to enforce almost complete separation of white and Black races in South Africa. Before the legislative end of apartheid, whites had held almost complete control over all political and socioeconomic power in South Africa during apartheid, only allowing acquiescent Black traditional leaders to participate in facades of political power. Repercussions from the decades of apartheid continue to resonate through every facet of South African life, despite copious amounts of legislation meant to alleviate inequalities.
Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors of South African society and took forms ranging from social movements and passive resistance to guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid refers to the foreign relations of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. South Africa introduced apartheid in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination laws. Initially the regime implemented an offensive foreign policy trying to consolidate South African hegemony over Southern Africa. These attempts had clearly failed by the late 1970s. As a result of its racism, occupation of Namibia and foreign interventionism in Angola, the country became increasingly isolated internationally.
Have You Heard from Johannesburg is a 2010 series of seven documentary films, covering the 45-year struggle of the global anti-apartheid movement against South Africa's apartheid system and its international supporters who considered them an ally in the Cold War.
Racism in South Africa can be traced back to the earliest historical accounts of interactions between African, Asian, and European peoples along the coast of Southern Africa. It has existed throughout several centuries of the history of South Africa, dating back to the Dutch colonization of Southern Africa, which started in 1652. Before universal suffrage was achieved in 1994, White South Africans, especially Afrikaners during the period of Apartheid, enjoyed various legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights that were denied to the indigenous African peoples. Examples of systematic racism over the course of South Africa's history include forced removals, racial inequality and segregation, uneven resource distribution, and disenfranchisement. Racial controversies and politics remain major phenomena in the country.
Human rights in South Africa are protected under the constitution. The 1998 Human Rights report by Myles Nadioo noted that the government generally respected the rights of the citizens; however, there were concerns over the use of force by law enforcement, legal proceedings and discrimination. The Human Rights Commission is mandated by the South African Constitution and the Human Rights Commission Act of 1994, to monitor, both pro-actively and by way of complaints brought before it, violations of human rights and seeking redress for such violations. It also has an educational role.
Malesela Benjamin Moloise was a South African poet and political activist who came to international attention following his arrest and subsequent execution by the government of South Africa. From Soweto, Moloise worked as an upholsterer before turning to poetry during his time on death row. In 1983, Moloise was arrested for the 1982 murder of Phillipus Selepe, a black security policeman who assisted in capturing three African National Congress (ANC) members. Although he initially confessed to the murder, he later retracted the statement during his trial. Moloise's death sentence sparked national and international outrage and was seen as emblematic of South Africa's brutal crackdown on anti-apartheid activists.
Feminism in South Africa concerns the organised efforts to improve the rights of the girls and women of South Africa. These efforts are largely linked to issues of feminism and gender equality on one hand, and racial equality and the political freedoms of African and other non-White South African ethnic groups on the other. Early feminist efforts concerned the suffrage of White women, allowing them to vote in elections beginning from 1930s, and significant activism in the 1950s to demand equal pay of men and women. The 1980s were a major turning point in the advancement of South African women, and in 1994, following the end of the apartheid regime, the status of women was bolstered by changes to the country's constitution. Since the end of apartheid, South African feminism is a contribution associated with the liberation and democratization of the country, however, the movement still struggles with the embedded conservative and patriarchal views within some segments of South African society.
Homelessness in South Africa dates back to the apartheid period. Increasing unemployment, lack of affordable housing, social disintegration, and social and economic policies have all been identified as contributing factors to the issue. Some scholars argue that solutions to homelessness in South Africa lie more within the private sphere than in the legal and political spheres.
End of the Dialogue (Phelandaba) is a 1970 documentary film made by five black South African expatriate members of the Pan-Africanist Congress and London film students who wanted to document Apartheid in South Africa. Because of South Africa's restrictive laws governing what could be photographed, the film had to be shot clandestinely and smuggled out of the country. It was edited and released in England.
The film caused an uproar when it was originally released in 1970. It was released worldwide and also screened on television in many countries, including the U.S., U.K. and New Zealand. The film is valuable as not only a record of history, but also a record of how little the outside world understood about what was happening in apartheid South Africa. The London Observer called it, "the most successful act of clandestine subversion against apartheid for years."
Jo Ractliffe is a South African photographer and teacher working in both Cape Town, where she was born, and Johannesburg, South Africa. She is considered among the most influential South African "social photographers."
