Lenord
From 1948 to 1994 apartheid was enforced in South Africa. Apartheid was "an official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites."(Dictionary) In 1948 when the apartheid was enforced for the first time the government split the country's population into four groups. These four groups consisted of 13 percent of the population was whites, 77 percent of the population was the African natives, and two percent of the population were the Asians. Many people and organizations tried to end the apartheid, but Nelson Mandela had the biggest effect on the apartheid through his participation in the African National Congress (ANC), the protest he joined and set up, and his time in jail.
Mandela had multiple positions in the African National Congress (ANC). Starting off as a secretary in the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1948 then became the president in 1950. Later, he was elected for Transvaal President of the ANC in 1952. Shortly after he was released from prison, in 1991 he was elected President of the ANC.
Brought on by the Youth League in 1949, the Programme of Action advocated the use of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non co-operation was accepted as official ANC policy. (www.anc.org) In 1952, the ANC started its "campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws and Mandela was elected National Volunteer-in-Chief."(www.anc.org) The Defiance Campaign was looked at as a mass civil disobedience campaign that gained the support of many ordinary people out of the ANC over time evolving into a mass defiance. As a result of Mandela's success, he began traveling and organizing resistance to discriminatory legislation. Mandela was given a suspended prison sentence for breaking the Suppression of Communism Act, which in simple terms they did not believe in the equality of races. Mandela opened a practice in Johannesburg with...
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