After centuries of clashes between the Boers and the British, an uneasy coalition government between the two groups ended when the Afrikaner National Party gained a parliamentary majority in the 1948. The party created apartheid in order to assert the white domination over non-whites in South Africa. In the 1960s, apartheid was redefined to further increase preferential treatment of whites. Several laws were enacted to institutionalise racial discrimination and the theory of separate development. Such laws regulated all social and economic life in South Africa and it was an offence for blacks to marry whites or do jobs that were classified as white only.

The policy of apartheid was further perpetuated by an unjust piece of legislation which created areas known as Bantu homelands, situated away from the white areas, for blacks. The invention of the homelands meant that Africans could not vote in the South African elections – with the intention of preserving white dominance. Political protest was not tolerated and the penalties were severe. Thousands of individuals who tried to resist the system were heavily tortured, killed, banished, or imprisoned for life like Nelson Mandela.

After the first multi-party elections in 1994, the institution of apartheid ended, paving the way for equality of all people and racial harmony in the new South Africa.