8, key topic 2 - The growth of apartheid, 1955–59

A System, Not One Law

The growth of apartheid between 1955 and 1959 is best understood as the tightening of a system. Earlier laws had already classified people by race, restricted movement, separated residential areas and controlled political rights. In this key topic, the important change is how those ideas were carried into daily experience, education and the future political map of South Africa.

Two terms help:

"Petty" does not mean unimportant. Petty apartheid could make every journey, queue, school day or public outing a reminder of racial hierarchy. Its power came from repetition. A sign on a bench or entrance did not only separate bodies; it told people who had status and who did not.

"Grand" apartheid was the attempt to solve a bigger problem for the white minority government. White South Africans depended on African labour in mines, farms, factories, homes and towns. Yet the National Party did not want African people to have equal political rights in a common South African state. The answer developed under Verwoerd was to claim that Africans belonged politically to separate ethnic "homelands", even when they lived and worked in urban South Africa.

This is why education matters in the same lesson as public facilities and homelands. Bantu Education did not simply teach children separately. It trained them for the limited roles apartheid claimed they should occupy. University apartheid in 1959 then pushed the same logic into higher education: future doctors, teachers, clerks, administrators and political leaders were to be trained within racial and ethnic boundaries.

A strong explanation should therefore link the parts:

Misconception check: apartheid was not just "racism in people's attitudes". It was a legal and administrative system. Racist ideas mattered, but the system worked through laws, officials, police, school departments, local authorities, chiefs, permits, signs and budgets.

Petty Apartheid And Segregation

Petty apartheid regulated everyday contact between racial groups. The most important law for this was the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, whose effects were visible through the mid-1950s. It allowed public premises, vehicles, or parts of them to be reserved for a particular race or class. In practice this meant separate facilities in public places such as transport, stations, parks, beaches, waiting rooms, entrances, counters and toilets.

The law did not require equal facilities. This is crucial. A student who writes that apartheid provided "separate but equal" facilities has missed the point. In practice, the best facilities were normally reserved for whites, while non-white South Africans often had inferior, inconvenient or humiliating alternatives.

Petty apartheid had several effects.

First, it made white superiority visible. A person did not need to read a government policy document to understand apartheid. Signs, entrances and separate services made the message physical: white people were to be protected, prioritised and separated.

Second, it reduced ordinary freedom. A non-white South African might be restricted in where they could sit, wait, travel, use a toilet, enter a building, watch a film, swim, eat or receive service. These restrictions turned normal public life into a sequence of checks and exclusions.

Third, it normalised inequality. If children grew up seeing one group use better facilities and another group use worse facilities, the social hierarchy could appear natural to those who benefited from it. This was one reason petty apartheid mattered politically. It trained society to expect separation.

Fourth, it created anger and humiliation. Being told to use an inferior entrance or facility was not a small inconvenience. It was a public statement that a person was less valued. That daily insult helped explain why apartheid produced resistance even before the later crises of 1960 and after.

Petty apartheid also supported the wider apartheid system. Separate facilities worked alongside pass laws, Group Areas removals, job restrictions and education control. A bus stop or waiting room was not isolated from the bigger system. It was one visible piece of a state that tried to organise people by racial category in almost every area of life.

For an exam answer on effects, avoid vague phrases such as "people were treated badly". Be precise:

Bantu Education And Control

Education was one of the most important ways apartheid grew after 1955. The Bantu Education Act had been passed in 1953, but its implementation and impact became central in the years that followed. It changed who controlled African schooling, how schools were funded, what pupils were taught, and what future the state imagined for African children.

Before Bantu Education, many African schools were mission schools supported by the state. The apartheid government wanted direct control. Schools had to register with the state, and African education was centralised under a department committed to separate and inferior provision. Mission schools that would not accept the new system lost support, and many closed.

The funding structure also mattered. African education was separated from general state spending and linked more closely to taxation paid by Africans themselves. This helped keep spending low. The result was not simply separate education; it was unequal education. Classrooms were overcrowded, facilities were poor, and teachers often worked with limited training and resources.

The curriculum had an ideological purpose. Verwoerd and his supporters did not want African pupils educated for equal citizenship in a shared South Africa. They wanted schooling to prepare pupils for the roles apartheid allowed: low-paid work, rural or homeland administration, and obedience to a racial hierarchy. Education was therefore tied to labour control and to the idea that Africans belonged to separate "Bantu" communities rather than to a common national society.

This is why many African parents, teachers and activists opposed Bantu Education so strongly. In 1954-55 there were protests and attempts to organise alternatives, including cultural clubs and the African Education Movement. However, building a replacement school system was extremely difficult. Families faced a cruel choice: accept a deliberately limited education, or risk their children receiving no formal schooling at all.

The Extension of University Education Act of 1959 pushed the same logic into higher education. It largely prevented non-white students from attending established white universities unless they had ministerial permission. It also created separate institutions for Coloured, Indian and African students, with African colleges shaped around ethnic categories. This mattered because higher education trained future teachers, professionals and administrators. Under apartheid, even that training was to be separated and controlled.

The impact of education changes can be summarised like this:

Misconception check: Bantu Education was not just "bad schools". It was bad because it was deliberately linked to apartheid's vision of society. The system aimed to teach pupils into inequality.