Apartheid S.A
Apartheid was a long shadow in the history of South Africa.
Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. The election of Nelson Mandela in 1994 marked the first time all race elections were held in South Africa and the end of all white rule in South Africa. Prior to 1994, only white people held political control with the majority of people living in South Africa having little to no real representation in government. One word described the racist system that kept non-whites from political and social equality and became infamously known around the world: Apartheid. Apartheid was not a case of just “I am white and I don't like blacks.” It was a complex system of social separation - called segregation under British rule. It was a system of cheap labor enforced by laws, social, and industrial practices. There was also an ideology that justified it; whatever one did to question it, there was the pre-existing attitude “we are civilized and they are not.” In 1910 the British parliament passed the Act of Union that brought British and Afrikaans colonies together to create a united and independent South Africa. Unfortunately, the newly created country did not break from a tradition of discrimination and segregation. Instead these practices became even further entrenched as bills were...
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