Following the general election of 1948, the National Party set in place its programme of Apartheid, with the formalization and expansion of existing policies and practices into a system of institutionalized racism and white domination. Apartheid legislation classified inhabitants and visitors into racial groups (black, white, coloured, and Indian or Asian). However, Werner Eiselen, the man who led the design of apartheid, argued that the government could not sustain segregation and white supremacy. He also, in 1948, proposed apartheid as a "political partition" policy instead of segregation in public facilities. Hence, the idea behind apartheid was more one of political separation, later known as "grand apartheid," than segregation, later known as "petty apartheid." Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd is considered the most influential politician in the growth of apartheid and described it as "a policy of good neighbourliness".
Up until 1956 women were for the most part excluded from these pass requirements as attempts to introduce pass laws for women were met with fierce resistance.
In the run-up to the 1948 elections, the main Afrikaner nationalist party, the Herenigde Nasionale Party (Reunited National Party) under the leadership of Protestant cleric Daniel Francois Malan, campaigned on its policy of apartheid. The NP narrowly defeated Smuts's United Party and formed a coalition government with another Afrikaner nationalist party, the Afrikaner Party. Malan became the first apartheid prime minister, and the two parties later merged to form the National Party (NP). The coalition government immediately began implementing apartheid policies, passing legislation prohibiting miscegenation and classifying individuals by race. The Group Areas Act of 1950, designed to separate racial groups geographically, became the heart of the apartheid system. The Separate Amenities Act was passed in 1953. Under this Act, municipal grounds could be reserved for a particular race. It created, among other things, separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities. Signboards such as "whites only" applied to public areas, even including park benches.
Interracial contact in sport was frowned upon, but there were no segregatory sports laws. The government was able to keep sport segregated using other legislation, such as the Group Areas Act.
The government tightened existing pass laws, compelling black South Africans to carry identity documents to prevent the migration of blacks to 'white' South Africa. For blacks, living in cities required employment. Families were excluded, thus separating wives from husbands and parents from children.
In 1950, D F Malan announced the NP's intention to create a Coloured Affairs Department. J.G. Strijdom, Malan's successor as Prime Minister, moved to strip coloureds and blacks of their voting rights in the Cape Province. The previous government had first introduced the Separate Representation of Voters Bill in parliament in 1951; however, a group of four voters, G Harris, WD Franklin, WD Collins and Edgar Deane, challenged its validity in court with support from the United Party. The Cape Supreme Court upheld the act, but the Appeal Court upheld the appeal, finding the act invalid because a two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament was needed in order to change the entrenched clauses of the Constitution. The government then introduced the High Court of Parliament Bill (1952), which gave parliament the power to overrule decisions of the court. The Cape Supreme Court and the Appeal Court declared this invalid too.
In 1955 the Strijdom government increased the number of judges in the Appeal Court from five to eleven, and appointed pro-Nationalist judges to fill the new places. In the same year they introduced the Senate Act, which increased the senate from 49 seats to 89. Adjustments were made such that the NP controlled 77 of these seats. The parliament met in a joint sitting and passed the Separate Representation of Voters Act in 1956, which removed coloureds from the common voters' roll in the Cape, and established a separate voters' roll for them. Immediately after the vote, the Senate was restored to its original size. The Senate Act was contested in the Supreme Court, but the recently enlarged Appeal Court, packed with government-supporting judges, rejected the application by the Opposition and upheld the Senate Act, and also the Act to remove coloured voters
From the 1950s onwards, various laws were passed to keep the races apart and suppress resistance. The practice of apartheid retained many of the features of the segregationist policies of earlier administrations. Examples include the 1913 Land Act and the various workplace colour bars.
National Party leaders argued that South Africa did not comprise a single nation, but was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, coloured and Indian. These groups were split further into thirteen "nations" or racial federations. White people encompassed the English and Afrikaans language groups; the black populace was divided into ten such groups. Legislation had the result of making the white race the dominant one.
The principal "apartheid laws" were as follows:
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between persons of different races and the Immorality Act of 1950 made sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.
The Population Registration Act of 1950 formalised racial classification and introduced an identity card for all persons over the age of eighteen, specifying their racial group. Also in 1950 the Group Areas Act partitioned the country into areas allocated to different racial groups. This law was the basis upon which political and social separation was constructed. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created separate government structures for blacks and was the first piece of legislation established to support the government's plan of separate development in the Bantustans. Further legislation in 1951 allowed the government to demolish black shackland slums and forced white employers to pay for the construction of housing for those black workers who were permitted to reside in "white" cities. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 prohibited people of different races from using the same public amenities, such as restaurants, public swimming pools, and restrooms. Further laws had the aim of suppressing resistance, especially armed resistance, to apartheid. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 banned the South African Communist Party and any other political party that the government chose to label as 'communist'. Disorderly gatherings were banned, as were certain organizations that were deemed threatening to the government.
An act of 1956 formalised racial discrimination in employment, while in 1958 the Promotion of Black Self-Government Act of 1958 entrenched the National Party's policy of nominally independent "homelands" for black people. So-called "self–governing Bantu units" were proposed, which would have devolved administrative powers, with the promise later of autonomy and self-government. The Bantu Investment Corporation Act of 1959 set up a mechanism to transfer capital to the homelands in order to create employment there.
In 1953, the Bantu Education Act crafted a separate system of education for African students and in 1959 separate universities were created for blacks, coloureds and Indians. Existing universities were not permitted to enroll new black students. Legislation of 1967 allowed the government to stop industrial development in "white" cites and redirect such development to the "homelands". The Black Homeland Citizenship Act of 1970 marked a new phase in the Bantustan strategy. It changed the status of the black so that they were no longer citizens of South Africa, but became citizens of one of the ten autonomous territories. The aim was to ensure whites became the demographic majority within South Africa by having all ten Bantustans choose "independence". The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required the use of Afrikaans and English on an equal basis in high schools outside the homelands.
To oversee the apartheid legislation, the bureaucracy expanded, and, by 1977, there were more than half a million white state employees.
Before South Africa became a republic, white politics was typified by the division between the chiefly-Afrikaner pro-republicans and the largely English anti-republicans, with the legacy of the Boer War still a factor for some people. Once republican status was attained, Verwoerd called for improved relations and greater accord between those of British descent and the Afrikaners. He claimed that the only difference now was between those who supported apartheid and those in opposition to it. The ethnic divide would no longer be between Afrikaans speakers and English speakers, but rather white and black. Most Afrikaners supported the notion of white unanimity to ensure their safety. Whites of British descent were divided. Many had voted in opposition to a republic, especially in Natal, where most votes said "No". Later, however, some of them recognised the perceived need for white unity, convinced by the growing trend of decolonisation elsewhere in Africa, which left them apprehensive. Harold Macmillan's "Wind of Change" pronouncement left the British faction feeling that Britain had abandoned them. The more conservative English-speakers gave support to Verwoerd; others were troubled by the severing of ties with Britain and remained loyal to the Crown. They were acutely displeased at the choice between British and South African nationality. Although Verwoerd tried to bond these different blocs, the subsequent ballot illustrated only a minor swell of support. indicating that a great many English speakers remained apathetic and that Verwoerd had not succeeded in uniting the white population.
