In South Africa, apartheid was a system of racial segregation enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) regime. It began in 1948 and ended with the abolishment of all Apartheid laws by President F.W De Klerk on 2 February 1990. The first major legislative change regarding race relations occurred in 1913 with the Native Land Act which prohibited Blacks from acquiring land beyond their ‘reserves’ for whites only. Other similar acts followed this such as the Natives Urban Areas Act (1945), Bantu Education Act (1953) and Group Areas Act (1950). These laws were designed to enforce racial segregation and control movement within South Africa by preventing Africans from living among Europeans or moving freely between urban areas.
