Questions: Apartheid in South Africa and Its End (1948–1994)

Question 1

What was the purpose of the Population Registration Act of 1950?

• A. To give all adults the right to vote
• B. To classify every South African by race as the basis for apartheid laws
• C. To count the population for economic planning only
• D. To grant citizenship to migrant workers

Answer: (B)

The act assigned each person to a racial category. Where people could live, whom they could marry, what schools they attended and whether they could vote all depended on that classification.

Question 2

Racial segregation in South Africa began only when the National Party took power in 1948.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Earlier laws such as the Natives Land Act of 1913 already restricted African land ownership, and pass systems date to the colonial era. Apartheid extended and systematized these older practices.

Question 3

What happened at Sharpeville in 1960, and how did the government respond?

Model answer: Police opened fire on a crowd protesting the pass laws, killing 69 people. The government declared a state of emergency and banned the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress.

After Sharpeville, legal protest became nearly impossible, and the ANC and PAC turned to underground and armed resistance.

Question 4

Which event in 1990 marked the start of negotiations to end apartheid?

• A. The Soweto uprising
• B. The release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of the ANC
• C. The founding of the National Party
• D. The Rivonia Trial

Answer: (B)

President F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC in February 1990, and Mandela was freed days later after 27 years in prison. Talks led to the election of April 1994. The Soweto uprising was in 1976 and the Rivonia Trial in 1963–1964.