The Men Who Ended Apartheid in South Africa
For hundreds of years, South Africa was ruled by Europeans, first by the Dutch and then
the British. When the country became independent in 1910, it did not lead to freedom for
all South Africans. Although the vast majority of people in South Africa were black
Africans, the country continued to be run by the white descendants of European colonists,
often called Afrikaners.
The Afrikaner government of South Africa maintained racist policies under a system called
apartheid which separated the different races of South Africa and limited the rights of
non-whites. Some of these policies were similar to racial segregation in the American
South during the civil rights movement. People of different races had separate schools,
hospitals, and libraries. They could not share the same restrooms or drinking fountains.
Marriage between the races was banned. Black South Africans lost their citizenship, could
not vote and were forced to live in special areas called homelands. These policies were
strengthened and made into laws in the 1940s and 1950s.
Nelson Mandela
To protest their poor treatment, black South
Africans started forming nationalist groups like
the African National Congress, or ANC, in
1912. The most famous leader of the ANC was
Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela was born in July 1918 to a
chief of the Tembu tribe. He was the first
member of his family to attend school, and he
later went on to get his law degree. In 1944,
he founded the ANC Youth League to get young people to join the fight against racism and
apartheid. Inspired by leaders like Mahatma Gandhi in India and (much later) Martin
Luther King Jr. in the United States, Nelson Mandela led many non-violent protests
against the Afrikaner government. The white government arrested Mandela with 150
others and charged them all with treason in 1956. The trial lasted more than four years
with everyone being found not guilty in 1961.
After the ANC was officially banned by the government, Mandela gave up on non-violent
confrontation, leading an armed wing of the African National Congress in 1961. This group
organized military training for ANC members and planned attacks against government
targets. For this, Mandela was again arrested in 1962, and this time he was sentenced to
life in prison.
Mandela served much of his sentence doing hard labor at Robben Island prison, where his
treatment was pretty harsh. On several occasions, the South African government offered
to release Mandela in exchange for promises that he would give up on the anti-apartheid
movement. Each time, Mandela refused.
In prison, Mandela quickly became an international symbol for the anti-apartheid
movement. His refusal to compromise his beliefs to gain his freedom helped the
movement to grow stronger. The United Nations condemned apartheid in 1973, calling it a
crime against humanity. Nations throughout the world refused to trade with South Africa
and their athletes were banned from international competitions – including the Olympics.
Anti-apartheid demonstrations inside South Africa continued to
grow, leading to widespread strikes and uprisings by black South
Africans during the 1980s, causing the white government to ease
back on some racial restrictions. In 1990, the new president of
South Africa, F.W. de Klerk released Mandela from prison without
any conditions. Upon his release, Mandela was elected president of
the ANC and began working with de Klerk to find ways to peacefully
end apartheid.
In 1994, de Klerk’s government officially ended apartheid and
South Africa held free elections in which all races could vote. Nelson
Mandela became South Africa’s first black president. During his
years as president, Mandela worked to heal his country from the
wounds of apartheid and create reconciliation between white and black South Africans.
He retired from public office in 1999.
F.W. de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk was born in 1936 in Johannesburg, South
Africa. His family supported apartheid; in fact his father was an
Afrikaner senator who pushed for laws to increase racial separation in
the 1940s and 1950s.
F.W. de Klerk earned his law degree in 1958 and worked as a lawyer
until 1972, when he was elected to the white apartheid government.
He held a variety of different political posts from 1978 to 1989.
During most of his career, de Klerk was not known to speak out
against the apartheid system. But that seemed to change in the late
1980s as he took the lead of a group of reform-oriented politicians. In 1990, he was
elected president of South Africa.
In his first speech after becoming president, de Klerk called for a non-racist South Africa.
He released Nelson Mandela from prison, lifted the ban on the ANC, and began working to
end apartheid. He worked with Mandela to help write a new constitution for South Africa
in which every adult could vote, regardless of race.
In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were both awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts
to peacefully end apartheid. When South Africa’s first truly free elections were held in
1994, Nelson Mandela became president, and F.W. de Klerk became vice president.