Room 5: Mining, urbanisation, segregation and apartheid.
The discovery of diamonds in the Northern Cape (1867) and gold on the main Witwatersrand Reef (1886) was accompanied by the creation of a highly controlled migrant labour system. This fundamentally changed the economy of all people living in southern Africa, both black and white. The mining industry formed the basis for deepening racial and class divisions.
In 1948 the Nationalist Party won the elections with a commitment to preserving white power - particularly for Afrikaners. The apartheid system constructed in the 1950s differed from segregation, which had preceded it for decades, in its vision of permanent racial separation, and in the comprehensiveness of the enforced divisions.
Turning points 1970s – 1994
By the 1970s resistance to the Afrikaner Nationalist government was growing. Then on 16 June 1976 pupils in Soweto marched in protest against instruction in Afrikaans and the low standard of what the government termed ‘Bantu Education’. The effects were far-reaching. In subsequent decades many South Africans gave their lives in the struggle for equal rights. The strengthening opposition, external pressure and increasing violence led in 1990 to the end of the apartheid regime. After the first democratic elections in 1994, a government of national unity led by the ANC came into being with Nelson Mandela as President.
|
Michael Goldberg, 1978, Hostel Monument, mixed media.
Goldberg uses the absence of people to show the confined spaces in which miners lived. He includes suitcases filled with straw, horns and sticks, all evocative of home in the rural areas.
University of the Witwatersrand.
Bridge separated for different races, 1950s, photographer unknown, digital print.
The apartheid system introduced in 1948 differed from segregation in its vision of permanent racial separation, and in the comprehensiveness of the enforced divisions.
Source: UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives
Aerial view of the 1994 elections, Digital print.
This image of queues of South Africans eager to cast their vote have become emblematic of the country’s first democratic elections.
Cape Argus/Trace Images.
|
