preview

How Successful Were the Methods Used to Fight Apartheid in South Africa?

Decent Essays

------------------------------------------------- How Successful were the Methods used to Fight Apartheid in South Africa? This essay will be discussing Apartheid and what methods were used to fight it, also whether they were successful or not. The word Apartheid is an Afrikaans word for apart or separateness. This was a law put in place by an Afrikaans Prime Minister called Dr. Daniel Malan, Dr. Malan put this law in place in 1948 to keep the Afrikaans race pure of any Black or Coloured blood, and there was always separation between blacks and whites but this law made it legal and legitimate. Apartheid was generally just a different approach to segregation. Blacks and Coloureds were not allowed to do certain things that they could do …show more content…

In 1952 the ANC and Indian Congress reacted by creating the ‘defiance campaign ‘ which targeted six laws the two organizations thought unjust including the law above. By the end of 1952, 8065 protesters were arrested and sent to jail. The defiance campaign ended in 1953 and was not successful in ending Apartheid but it did have a major effect on the ANC; 3000 members joined the ANC during these protests. (aylett 14-15) Nelson Mandela was a very important person in fighting Apartheid because he was a leader to black people as the ANC volunteer leader and part of the first black law firm in South Africa. He also created a new method of fighting Apartheid. Before the Massacre at Sharpeville peacefully and non-violent methods had been used to fight Apartheid but the Youth League did not think these methods were improving anything and moving too slowly for their liking. So violent methods were introduced to the now secret ANC organization and a new organization was created called Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK for short. The methods were to blow up buildings to do with the government like post offices, pass offices and electricity pylons making sure there were no people in them. Mandela left South Africa to recruit supports of the MK and when he came back to South Africa he was immediately arrested and accused of sabotage which Mandela admitted to doing. At the trial Nelson Mandela did not go out without a

Get Access