Early Apartheid and the Sharpeville Crisis

The National Party’s election victory in 1948 brought a systematic programme of racial classification, residential segregation, pass controls and unequal political rights. Opposition developed through civic organisations, trade unions, the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and groups such as the Black Sash.

On 21 March 1960 police killed demonstrators protesting pass laws at Sharpeville. The government declared a state of emergency, banned major opposition movements and accelerated the turn towards underground resistance.