Nelson Mandela And Apartheid

Apartheid is a policy of the government in South Africa based on segregation that was made in the late 1930s and legislated in 1948. It was coined by the South Africa Bureau for Racial Affairs, or SABRA for short. Under the system, colored people did not share the same rights and privileges as the whites. Apartheid was used to segregate the blacks from the whites. For example, a black cannot marry a white, and vice versa. Plus, any blacks over the age of 16 had to carry identity documents with them. In the 1970s, the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act revoked the South Africans's citizenship.

One man, Nelson Mandela, was a leading member of the African National Congress, a group in which they opposed the white government and its apartheid. However, the white government outlawed the Congress in 1960 and captured Mandela and sent him to jail in 1962. He spent 27 years as a political prisoner, and in 1990, President F. W. De Klerk released Mandela. He used his position to overthrow the apartheid and create a multi-racial democracy. In 1993, he received the Nobel Prize along with the president, and in 1994, he was elected for the 1st black president of South America. Because of his determination to overthrow the apartheid, he was known as a hero.