In the meantime, black resistance under the leadership of the ANC had consolidated. Mass protests resulted in the government banning all opposition groups and organizations. This interdict was to no avail. The resistance organizations became militant and kept on working underground.

After the Soweto uprising of 1976, when thousands of pupils, demonstrating against Afrikaans as a compulsory school subject, were brutally shot, the unrest spread over the whole country. The ANC struggle became militant and South Africa developed fully into a police state. This situation lasted a few years, until in 1989 the last president of the old South African government, F. W. de Klerk, openly admitted the failure of apartheid policies. An important reason for the collapse of the old regime was- after many years of economic and trade embargo - the desolate state of the economy. Eventually negotiations opened the door to the first general elections in South Africa.

Left: Dr. Hendrik French Verwoerd, architect of apartheid ideology

Right: Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last President of the old South Africa

The Apartheid Era

continued
In 1954 J. G. Strijdom succeeded D. F. Malan in office. He drove apartheid legislation even further. His successor in 1958 was H. F. Verwoerd, a brilliant intellectual, who refined and theoretically substantiated the apartheid ideology. Limited self-administration was instituted in the black reservations and they were declared semi-autonomous homelands: the Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and KwaZulu. By this measure the South African government rid itself of responsibility for the economic and social problems in the reservations. The white government could call its elections free and general, because the majority of the blacks were no longer citizens of South Africa.