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Group Areas Act was the title of three
acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
of the
Parliament of South Africa The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature; under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameral Parliament comprises a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces. The current twenty-seve ...
enacted under the
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
government of South Africa The Republic of South Africa is a parliamentary republic with three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary, operating in a parliamentary system. Legislative authority is held by the Parliament of South Africa. Executive authority ...
. The acts assigned
racial group A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
s to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of
urban apartheid Social apartheid is de facto segregation on the basis of class or economic status, in which an underclass is forced to exist separated from the rest of the population. The word "apartheid", originally an Afrikaans word meaning "separation", gaine ...
. An effect of the law was to exclude people of color from living in the most developed areas, which were restricted to Whites (
Sea Point Sea Point (Afrikaans: ''Seepunt'') is one of Cape Town's most affluent and densely populated suburbs, situated between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean, a few kilometres to the west of Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD). Moving from ...
, Claremont). It required many people of color to commute large distances from their homes to be able to work. The law led to people of color being forcibly removed for living in the "wrong" areas. The majority that was people of color, were given much smaller areas (e.g.,
Tongaat oThongathi (previously and popularly known as Tongaat) is a town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, about north of Durban and south of KwaDukuza. It now forms part of eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, or the Greater Durban area. The area is hom ...
,
Grassy Park Grassy Park is a suburb of the City of Cape Town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is bordered to the east by the suburb of Lotus River, to the north by the suburb of Parkwood and to the west by a small lake called Princess Vlei ...
) to live in than the white minority who owned most of the country.
Pass Laws In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, manage urbanization and allocate migrant labor. Also known as the natives' law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only black ...
required people of color to carry pass books and later "reference books", similar to passports, to enter the "white" parts of the country. The first Group Areas Act, the ''Group Areas Act, 1950'' was promulgated on 7 July 1950, and it was implemented over a period of several years. It was amended by Parliament in 1952, 1955 (twice), 1956 and 1957. Later in 1957, it was repealed and re-enacted in consolidated form as the ''Group Areas Act, 1957'', which was amended in 1961, 1962, and 1965. In 1966, that version was, in turn, repealed and re-enacted as the ''Group Areas Act, 1966'', which was amended in 1969, 1972, 1974, 1975,2022 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, and 1984. It was repealed, along with many other discriminatory laws, on 30 June 1991 by the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act, 1991.


Background

After the 1948 general election,
D.F. Malan Daniël François Malan (; 22 May 1874 – 7 February 1959) was a South African politician who served as the fourth prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. The National Party implemented the system of apartheid, which enforc ...
's administration commenced its policy of
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
that sought to segregate the races in South Africa. The government hoped to achieve this through "separate development" of the races and this entailed passing laws that would ensure a distinction on social, economic, political and, in the case of the Group Areas Act, geographical lines. The Group Areas Act may be regarded as an extension of the Asiatic Land Tenure Act, 1946.
Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
stated in his book, ''
Long Walk to Freedom ''Long Walk to Freedom'' is an autobiography credited to South African President Nelson Mandela. It was ghostwritten by Richard Stengel and first published in 1994 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, educatio ...
'' that "the Groups Areas Act was the foundation of residential apartheid. Under its regulations, each racial group could own land, occupy premises, and trade only in its own separate area. Indians could henceforth only live in Indian areas, Africans in African, Coloureds in Coloured. If whites wanted the land or houses of the other groups, they could simply declare that land a white area and take them".


Provisions

The Act empowered the Governor-General to declare certain geographical areas to be for the exclusive occupation of specific racial groups. In particular the statute identified three such racial groups: whites, coloureds, and natives. This authority was exercised on the advice of the Minister of the Interior and the Group Areas Board. Once an area had been designated for sole occupation by certain racial groups, the proclamation would not become legally effective for at least one year. Once this time had expired, it became a criminal offence to remain in occupation of property in that area with the punishment potentially being a fine and two years' imprisonment. The Act also applied to businesses with racial designation being applied on the basis of the individuals who held a controlling interest in the company.


Impact

The Act became an effective tool in the separate development of races in South Africa. It also granted the Minister of the Interior a mandate to forcibly remove non-whites from valuable pieces of land so that they could become white settlements. One of the most famous uses of the Group Areas Act was the destruction of
Sophiatown Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians a ...
, a suburb of
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
. On 9 February 1955, 2,000 policemen began removing residents to Meadowlands,
Soweto Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a s ...
and erected a new white-only area called ''Triomf'' (Victory).http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/sophiatown140206.htm#.Vbzqm_lViko Sophiatown again, 50 years on


See also

*
Apartheid laws The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as ''apartheid'' was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people o ...


References


External links


List of apartheid-era legislation

Original copy of statute

Cape Town's District Six Museum
which examines forced removals {{Apartheid legislation navbox Apartheid laws in South Africa 1950 in South African law 1957 in South African law 1966 in South African law