This post will examine the history of white supremacy in South Africa and its comparative relationship with the history of white supremacy in the United States. South Africa provides for an interesting research point seeing as the racial tension and racial discrimination within their borders has a very long and tumultuous history similar to the U.S. While the true origins of white supremacy trace back hundreds of hundreds of years when the notion of "whiteness" was invented, this post will focus specifically on the times in each nations history in which both countries employed segregation legislation. I chose to look at segregation because the notions of racial separation and one race being less than another is an ideology deeply rooted in white supremacist rhetoric. Segregation in society also marks a specific time in a nations history in which white supremacist values and opinions have become legalized practices. Knowing the history of such practices will leave observers with a better lens in looking at contemporary issues.
Racial segregation legislation in the United States began with “Black Codes” which were laws put into place after slavery was ended with the intention on limiting the basic civil liberties and human rights of newly freed slaves. The implementation of Black Codes in the late 1800’s marked what would be an uphill battle with racial segregation in the United States. After Black Codes many Southern states began adopting Jim Crow laws, Jim Crow laws were enacted under the pretense of “separate but equal” as a means of preventing racial mixing. Despite the claims that these laws created an environment of separate equality it is clear that non white citizens were treated as inferior inhabitants. Though many of the Jim Crow laws in the South allowed African Americans to vote, states introduced literary and lineage tests as a means of condensing the black vote. African American voters who were able to become eligible quickly became the target of racially motivated violence by citizens and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Jim Crow laws and racial segregation came to a halt via the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, with legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The separation of races in South Africa began in colonial times, however the first legalized form of segregation came during a time referred to as apartheid. Apartheid refers to a series of legislation which enforced the separation of races in South Africa. Apartheid began in 1948 after the general election which was swept by the National party. National party members claimed that South Africa was not one state but rather a coalition of independent communities separated by race. Shortly after the election the Group Areas Act of 1950 was passed which enforced the forcible removal of non white residents from white communities, up until this point mixed races were living side by side. The Group Areas Act marked the beginning of several racially motivated legislation prohibiting such things as: interracial marriage, interracial sex, and the mixing of races in certain public areas(see picture above). In the early 90’s amongst violence, protest, and trade embargo's South Africa hosted a multi-racial election which was won by the African National Congress lead by Nelson Mandela, this victory ended apartheid and reintroduced the co-mingling of races in South Africa.
When looking at racial separation in the U.S. and South Africa there are some interesting differences; initially one can see that the end of racial segregation in South Africa is much more recent than in the U.S., also South Africa actually used forcible removal to create homogeneous communities. In the U.S. race tension has always differed regionally, primarily between the north and south, while South Africa created broad racial separation on a national level. The level of recentness as well as the magnitude of separation in South Africa provides for an intriguing research topic as this blog continues to dive into the past and present issues of white supremacy on a global level.
