What were the original goals of Apartheid and when was it instituted?! Describe some of the legal restrictions placed on ethnic groups under...

Apartheid is the name given to the system and policies of racial segregation instituted in South Africa after the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948. These policies enforced complete racial segregation, and black South Africans were forced into separate areas from whites. In addition, laws prevented blacks and whites from using the same facilities or from having much contact. Subsequent laws created racial categories, including white, black, colored, and Asian, and made...

Apartheid is the name given to the system and policies of racial segregation instituted in South Africa after the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948. These policies enforced complete racial segregation, and black South Africans were forced into separate areas from whites. In addition, laws prevented blacks and whites from using the same facilities or from having much contact. Subsequent laws created racial categories, including white, black, colored, and Asian, and made it illegal for whites and others to have sexual relations or to get married. Blacks mainly interacted with whites as exploited workers.

Racial segregation began to be institutionalized in 1913, when the Land Act was passed; this act, which came into effect three years after South Africa had gained independence, forced black South Africans to live in separate areas, called reserves. Those who opposed the act eventually coalesced into the political group the African National Congress (ANC). 

In 1960, in the black town of Sharpeville, the police shot black South Africans who were part of Pan-African Congress (PAC), a splinter group of the ANC, killing 67 of them and wounding 180. The result was that the ANC and the PAC decided they had to turn to more violent means of resistance, and they both formed militias. 

Nelson Mandela, the head of the military wing of the ANC, was incarcerated after the Sharpeville massacre, and his speeches while facing the death sentence made him a celebrated cause worldwide. The international community began to focus their attention on the evils of apartheid. The United Nations denounced the system of apartheid in 1973, and in the 1980s, countries began to institute economic sanctions, or penalties, on South Africa. In 1989, the government of F.W. de Klerk began to dismantle the policies of apartheid as a reaction to years of international pressure. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the President of South Africa.