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Statement by the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, New York, 1985.

The international community must recognise that voluntary measures have failed. For over two decades, appeals to South Africa to dismantle apartheid have been rejected. The regime has intensified repression: a State of Emergency was declared in July 1985 and thousands of opponents have been detained without trial. Constructive engagement, the policy of maintaining economic and diplomatic ties in the hope of gradual reform, has produced no meaningful change. The Special Committee calls on all member states to impose comprehensive mandatory economic sanctions, including a complete embargo on trade and investment, and to sever diplomatic relations with the Pretoria regime until apartheid is abolished and all political prisoners are freed.

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British political cartoon published in the Observer, 1985, showing two businessmen in suits standing next to a large banner reading "Against Apartheid." The men are looking away from the banner, engaged in a handshake over a briefcase labelled "South African Contracts." The caption reads: "Constructive Engagement."

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President P.W. Botha of South Africa, address to the South African Parliament, 15 August 1985.

I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide. South Africa's problems cannot be solved by the stroke of a pen. We find ourselves in a world of growing terrorism and power politics, where the strong nations try to dictate to the weak. I know for a fact that most leaders of the countries imposing or calling for sanctions against South Africa know that sanctions do not work. They are using South Africa as a whipping boy for their own internal political purposes. Sanctions will harm, above all, the black people of South Africa whom these leaders claim to be helping. The South African government will not be intimidated.

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Historian Allister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Negotiated Revolution, published 1995.

The years between 1984 and 1989 saw the most intense internal and international pressure on the apartheid state it had ever faced. Inside South Africa, the township revolts, the formation of the United Democratic Front in 1983, and the rolling mass actions organised by COSATU created a governability crisis that the State of Emergency could contain but not resolve. Internationally, the Rubicon speech, in which Botha refused to announce meaningful reforms, triggered a financial crisis when Chase Manhattan Bank refused to roll over South Africa's loans in August 1985 and other banks followed. Within months South Africa had been forced to suspend repayment of its foreign debt. The combination of internal revolt and financial isolation, more than trade sanctions, convinced key figures in the National Party government that negotiations with the ANC were ultimately unavoidable.

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Statement by South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster, broadcast on South African state radio, 18 June 1976, two days after the Soweto uprising began.

The events of the past few days in Soweto are the work of agitators who have exploited the grievances of a small group of students for subversive purposes. The South African government will not be held to ransom by those who seek to undermine order and the proper functioning of society. Education is provided to black students at great expense and this government will not permit the disruption of schools by those who reject the reasonable conditions under which that education is offered. The decision to use Afrikaans as a medium of instruction is an educational matter, and it will not be reversed under pressure from the streets. The police acted with restraint in difficult circumstances. The government calls on responsible community leaders to restore calm.

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Photograph taken in Soweto, 16 June 1976, showing crowds of schoolchildren running through the streets with police vehicles visible in the background and smoke rising from buildings. Signs carried by students read "Down with Afrikaans" and "Bantu Education Must Fall."

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Desmond Tutu, Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, writing in a public letter to Prime Minister Vorster, 6 May 1976, six weeks before the uprising.

I am writing to you, sir, because I have a growing nightmarish fear that unless something is done very soon then bloodshed and violence are going to happen in South Africa almost inevitably. A black person feels like a dog in his own country. Black people are bitter, and I must be honest with you: the anger of black people is real and growing, and I fear it will burst into violence that will be a blot on South Africa's name. I am writing as one who has deep love for this land, for all its peoples. We have tried to work peacefully, constitutionally, for change. But we are left with the growing feeling that we are being played for suckers. I plead with you in God's name, listen to us before it is too late.

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Historian Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa, third edition, 2000.

The Soweto uprising of June 1976 marked a decisive turning point in the history of resistance to apartheid. It demonstrated that the apparent calm of the early 1970s had concealed a profound anger among the black urban population, particularly its youth. The immediate trigger was the Afrikaans medium decree of 1974, which required mathematics and social studies to be taught in Afrikaans in black schools. But the uprising was about far more than language: it was a rejection of Bantu Education as a system designed to condemn black South Africans to permanent inferiority. The international response, including the withdrawal of foreign investment and the strengthening of the arms embargo, accelerated the pressure on the apartheid state.

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Speech by South African President F.W. de Klerk to the South African Parliament, 2 February 1990.

The prohibition of the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party and a number of subsidiary organisations is being rescinded. The media emergency regulations as well as the education emergency regulations are being abolished in their entirety. The epoch of colonialism, paternalism and apartheid cannot be reconciled with the dynamic demands of our time in the rest of the world. We must honestly admit that our international isolation is a burden we can no longer afford to carry. I am placing a new South Africa on the negotiating table. I am inviting all leaders who commit themselves to peace and to renounce violence to come to the negotiating table. Together we must devise the constitution of the new South Africa.

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Press photograph taken outside Victor Verster Prison, Paarl, 11 February 1990, showing Nelson Mandela walking free with his fist raised, surrounded by ANC supporters.

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Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, published 1994.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. I had been walking for a long time and I was tired, but I walked with the awareness that I was entering a new era in the life of my country and the life of our struggle. I raised my fist to the crowd. The emotion was overwhelming. I had not been in contact with the outside world for twenty-seven years. I did not then know that the world had changed so profoundly. I knew only that the tyrant I had fought had now agreed to share power. But I also knew that the hard work of building a new South Africa lay entirely ahead of us. Liberation had arrived; the real work of freedom had not yet begun.

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Historian Patti Waldmeir, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa, published 1997.

De Klerk's speech of 2 February 1990 was the single most dramatic moment in modern South African history. Yet it was not an act of moral conversion. De Klerk had concluded, after taking office in 1989, that apartheid was economically and politically unsustainable: the costs of the security state, the isolation of the economy, and the internal revolt made the status quo untenable. He also calculated (wrongly, as it turned out) that the ANC was sufficiently weakened by years of exile and internal repression that it could be brought into a managed transition in which the National Party would remain a dominant force. What de Klerk did not foresee was that the moral authority of Mandela and the ANC's organisational resilience would make the transition to majority rule unavoidable rather than negotiated on National Party terms.

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Statement by South African Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger to the South African Parliament, 14 September 1977, on the death of Steve Biko in police custody.

The death of any person in detention is a matter of serious concern to this government. Mr Biko's death leaves me cold. I am not going to cry about it. He died after a hunger strike. Any person detained has the right to hunger strike if he so wishes. The security of the state is paramount, and those who set out to destroy the fabric of our society must accept the consequences of their actions. The Department of Justice has nothing to apologise for. I want to inform the House that all proper procedures were followed. The matter will be investigated.

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British political cartoon published in the Guardian, September 1977, showing a South African police officer standing behind a desk labelled "Official Inquiry," pointing to a certificate that reads "Died Naturally." Behind him, in shadow, is the outline of a prison cell. The officer's expression is one of satisfaction. The caption reads: "Cause of Death."

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Donald Woods, Biko, first published 1978.

Steve Biko had been driven 1,200 kilometres from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria while naked, chained, and already suffering serious brain injuries caused by blows to the head sustained during interrogation. He was dumped on the floor of a cell in Pretoria Central Prison. He died there on 12 September 1977. He was thirty years old. The post-mortem examination revealed brain damage consistent with repeated blows to the skull. The Security Police's claim that he had died as a result of a hunger strike was not merely false: it was grotesque. He had been beaten to death. The government's indifference, expressed in Kruger's infamous remark that Biko's death "left him cold," captured the moral bankruptcy at the centre of the apartheid state.

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Historian Tom Lodge, Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki, published 2002.

The death of Steve Biko in September 1977 had consequences that the South African government had not anticipated. Internationally, it transformed the debate about apartheid from a relatively abstract argument about racial segregation into a visceral confrontation with state violence and murder. The banning of eighteen organisations and two newspapers immediately after Biko's death, combined with Kruger's callous parliamentary statement, provided opponents of apartheid with the most powerful propaganda they could have wished for. Within South Africa, the effect on black youth was radicalising: the message drawn from Biko's death was that moderation and internal opposition would be crushed, and that only organised external pressure and armed struggle offered any prospect of change.

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Excerpt from a speech by South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd to Parliament, 1958

“The European has for centuries advanced culturally and economically. The Native has not. Apartheid seeks not to oppress, but to allow each to develop along his own path, without disruption or interference. Petty Apartheid measures, such as the separation of facilities, are necessary to protect the dignity and standards of the White man while safeguarding the identity of the Bantu. If Africans are allowed unrestricted access to White areas, our civilization will erode. The goal of separate benches, buses, entrances, and schools is not humiliation, but harmony. Only through order and separation can peace be preserved. Integration, as proposed by liberal voices, will not uplift the Native. It will simply destroy the foundations of our society.”

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Extract from the Group Areas Act (Act No. 41 of 1950), passed by the South African Parliament.

“In the interests of public order, racial purity, and the development of distinct communities, it is hereby enacted that every racial group shall reside, trade, and operate only within areas assigned to that group by the Minister. The Mixed Use of urban space is deemed unlawful. *

Any contravention, including the occupancy, lease, or ownership of property across racial lines, shall be met with legal expulsion, fines, or imprisonment. These measures are essential for preserving the European character of South African cities and ensuring the safety and development of all races.”

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Excerpt from a speech delivered by Albert Luthuli, President of the African National Congress, at a community rally in Durban, July 1960.

“Apartheid is not just the division of land or the passing of cruel laws - it is the daily insult that reminds every African that he is a stranger in his own country. A sign that says ‘Whites Only’ on a bench or a bus is not petty; it is a wound repeated each day. Our people are told where to walk, where to live, where to die. The Group Areas Act tears apart families; petty apartheid mocks their dignity. Both are crimes against our humanity. To the world, we say: this is not a misunderstanding. This is a deliberate policy of exclusion. And to our oppressors, we say: no nation can endure forever when it is built on humiliation.”