The word apartheid comes from the Afrikaans language, literally meaning apartness. It has come to be known as a policy for racial segregation, enforced by the white governments of South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

White settlement began in South Africa in 1652 and blacks have been discriminated against since this time, but apartheid was only systematized under law when the Afrikaner nationalists came to power in 1948.

The population registration Act of 1950 put all South Africans into 3 racial categories: Bantu (black African), white or colored (mixed race).

From then on the separation of the races was enforced.

The Group Areas act of 1950 assigned races to different residential and business sections in urban places and the Land Acts of 1944 and 45 restricted non-whites to specific areas.

The whites completely moved the native blacks out of the best areas of...