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Activism
Direct and sustained action aimed at promoting or resisting social or political change.
Apartheid
Apartheid was a system of legally enforced racial segregation and political exclusion in South Africa (1948–1994) that denied the Black majority equal rights and participation in democracy.
Bantu Education Act
A law passed in 1953 that placed all Black education under government control and implemented a deliberately inferior curriculum designed to prepare Black students only for manual labour. Spending per White student was approximately ten times higher than per Black student.
Bantustan
Also known as homelands, these were territories designated by the apartheid government for specific Black ethnic groups. Ten Bantustans were created, occupying only 13% of South Africa's land area. Four were granted nominal "independence" that was not recognised by any other country.
Black nationalism
a movement advocating pride, self-determination, and independence for African Americans.
Civil disobedience
The peaceful refusal to obey unjust laws as a form of protest.
Coup d’état
A coup d'état is the sudden, illegal, and often violent seizure of power from a government by a small group of people, typically the military or other political elites.
De facto segregation
Racial separation that exists in practice through social customs, housing patterns, and economic inequality rather than through explicit laws (de jure segregation).
Desegregation
The process of ending the separation of racial groups in public institutions such as schools, transport, and facilities, often enforced through court orders or legislation.
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
A wartime order issued by President Lincoln that declared enslaved people in areas still in rebellion against the United States to be free, using war powers rather than a peacetime law, which shifted the war’s moral purpose.
Great Depression
A severe worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash and lasted through the 1930s. It caused mass unemployment, collapsed international trade, and destabilised democratic governments, contributing to the rise of extremist movements in Europe.
Group Areas Act
A South African law passed in 1950 that divided the country into racially designated residential zones. It made it illegal for people to live outside the area assigned to their racial group, leading to the forced removal of an estimated 3.5 million people between 1960 and 1983.
Industrialization
the process of developing factories, technology, and large-scale production.
Infrastructure
The fundamental physical and organizational structures, such as transportation, communication, and energy systems, needed for a society’s economy to function effectively.
Jim Crow laws
A system of state and local laws enacted primarily in the Southern United States from the 1870s through the 1960s that enforced racial segregation and discrimination. Named after a Black caricature in minstrel shows, these laws mandated separate facilities for Black and white Americans in schools, transport, restaurants, and all areas of public life. They were enforced through legal penalties and the threat of extralegal violence.
Jim Crow Laws
State and local laws enacted in the U.S. South after Reconstruction that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised African Americans until the mid-20th century.
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, which used legal challenges, lobbying, and public campaigns to fight racial discrimination and secure civil rights for African Americans.
Petty Apartheid
The everyday racial segregation of public facilities such as park benches, beaches, buses, hospitals, and post offices under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953). Distinguished from "grand apartheid" (the Bantustan system and political exclusion), petty apartheid enforced constant daily humiliation on non-White South Africans.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was a Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation by ruling that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional, legally entrenching Jim Crow laws and limiting US democracy.
Population Registration Act
A South African law passed in 1950 that required every citizen to be classified by race as White, Coloured, Indian, or Native (Bantu). It formed the legal foundation of the entire apartheid system by determining each person's rights and opportunities based on their assigned racial category.
Propaganda
Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. States use propaganda through media, education, and public events to shape public opinion.
Reconstruction
Government-led rebuilding of society and economy after a major crisis.
Segregation
The enforced separation of groups, often by race, in public and private life.
Self-determination
The right of a people to control their own political, cultural, and economic destiny.