History Worksheet

Apartheid and Racial Segregation

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Apartheid and Racial Segregation

Before the Second World War, the Western countries were not as critical of discrimination based on race; this was the period that the colonization of Africa took place. The 2nd World War highlighted the issues of racism, which resulted in the world calling for decolonization and turning away from such regulations (Lucas, 2018). It was in this period that apartheid was introduced by the NP (National Party) in South Africa as an extension of the policy of racial segregation. The application of apartheid was facilitated by the enactment of the 1950 Act of Population Registration, which categorized every South Africa either as Asian, mixed-race, white, or black.

Apartheid entailed a social structure whose primary purpose was to severely disadvantage the blacks who were the majority in South Africa. This policy advocated for the separate development of the various racial groups within South Africa. To assist in the enforcement of apartheid, the government reinforced the subsisting pass laws that required the blacks to carry documentation to authorizing their access within the restricted areas (Orten, 2015). Moreover, the government enacted other legislation that prohibited interaction between different races, limited every race to specific forms of jobs, introduced distinct educational standards, and denied the participation of the blacks within the national administration.

The primary difference between racial segregation and the policy of apartheid in South Africa was that apartheid legislated segregation. Apartheid was perceived to be much worse in comparison to racial segregation since it was established during a period in which other nations throughout the world were transitioning from racist rules. Apartheid can be compared to racial segregation within the United States (Serdar Ornek). In the US, the initial step toward making racial segregation official was through the introduction of Black Codes, which were legislations enacted around 1865 in the South (Serdar Ornek). These laws dictated significant aspects of the lives of the black individuals, such as where they could live and work. Ultimately, segregation became an official policy following its enforcement by an array of Southern legislations through the Jim Crow legislation. The primary purpose of these laws was to keep the African Americans within an inferior status by inhibiting their access to facilities for the public in addition to ensuring that they lived separately from the whites. These laws encompassed the segregation of everything, including residential areas, schools, public parks, jails, and cemeteries (Orten, 2015). The following essay analyzes the policy of apartheid in South Africa in addition to comparing it to the racial segregation policy in the United States.

References

Lucas, E. T. (2018). Apartheid. Salem Press Encyclopedia. Orten, J. D. (2015). Similarities and Difference in the US and South Africa Civil Rights Struggles. Journal of Social Work. Serdar Ornek, F. K. (n.d.). A Comparison between The Segregation Policy against African Americans and the Apartheid Poicy. 2014. https://www.history.com/topics/africa/apartheid