In 1948 the ruling South African National Party created a racist and segregationist system of discrimination known as apartheid, meaning “apartness” or “separation.” The population was divided into four legally unequal racial groups: whites, blacks, Asians, and racially mixed “coloureds.” South Africa was the most highly industrialized country in Africa at this time. Good jobs in the cities were reserved for whites, who lived in luxurious modern central neighborhoods. Blacks were restricted to precarious outlying townships plagued by poverty, crime, and mistreatment from white policemen.

By the 1950s black South Africans and their allies mounted peaceful protests. A turning point came in 1960, when police in the township of Sharpeville fired at demonstrators and killed sixty-nine black demonstrators. The main black nationalist organization — the African National Congress (ANC) — was outlawed but sent some of its leaders abroad to establish new headquarters. Other ANC members, led by a young lawyer, Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), stayed in South Africa to mount armed resistance. In 1962 Mandela was captured, tried for treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment. (See “Viewpoints 32.1: The Struggle for Freedom in South Africa.”)

In the 1970s the South African government fell into the hands of “securocrats,” military and intelligence officers who directed the state’s resources into policing apartheid and dominating South Africa’s neighbors by force. They adopted a policy known as the “total strategy,” which intensified repression of black activists at home and launched military strikes against ANC and SWAPO camps operating in neighboring countries. At the United Nations, African leaders denounced the South African government, and activists in countries around the world pressured their governments to impose economic sanctions against the South African regime. South Africa’s white leaders responded with a program of cosmetic reforms in 1984 to improve their international standing. The 3 million coloureds and the 1 million South Africans of Asian descent gained limited parliamentary representation, but no provision was made for any representation of the country’s 22 million blacks.

The reforms provoked a backlash. In the segregated townships young black militants took to the streets, clashing with heavily armed white security forces. Between 1985 and 1989 five thousand people died and fifty thousand were jailed without charges because of the political unrest. Across the border with Angola, South African troops engaged in escalating conflicts with Angolan, ANC, SWAPO, and Cuban forces. Mounting casualties and defeat in major battles shook white South Africans’ confidence.

Isolated politically, besieged by economic sanctions, and defeated on the battlefield, South African president Frederik W. de Klerk opened a dialogue with ANC leaders in 1989. He lifted the state of emergency imposed in 1985, legalized the ANC, and freed Mandela in February 1990, in time for him to attend Namibia’s independence ceremony. Mandela suspended the ANC’s armed struggle and negotiated an agreement with de Klerk calling for universal suffrage, which meant black-majority rule. The accord also guaranteed the civil and economic rights of minorities, including job security for white government workers.

In May 1994 Mandela was elected president of South Africa by an overwhelming majority. Heading the new “government of national unity,” which included de Klerk as vice president, Mandela and the South African people set about building a multiracial democracy. The government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission modeled on the commission impaneled in Chile to investigate abuses under Pinochet. The commission let black victims speak out, and it offered white perpetrators amnesty in return for fully confessing their crimes. Seeking to sustain the economy built through South Africa’s industrialization and to avoid white flight, Mandela repudiated his Marxist beliefs and reassured domestic and foreign investors of his commitment to liberalization.