"Apartheid, pronounced ah PAHRT hayt or pronounced ah PAHRT hyt, was, from 1948 until 1991, the South African government's policy of rigid racial segregation. The word apartheid means separateness in Afrikaans, one of South Africa's official languages. .

             Built on earlier South African laws and customs, apartheid classified every South African by race as either (1) black, (2) white, (3) Colored (mixed race), or (4) Asian. Apartheid required segregation in housing, education, employment, public accommodations, and transportation. It segregated not only almost all whites from nonwhites but also major nonwhite groups from each other. It also limited the rights of nonwhites to own and occupy land, and to enter white neighborhoods.".

             2.

             "The South African government tried to justify apartheid by claiming that peaceful coexistence of the races was possible only if the races were separated from one another. However, white South Africans used apartheid chiefly as a way to control the vast nonwhite majority. .

             Most South Africans strongly opposed apartheid. Leading opposition groups included the African National Congress (ANC). Most ANC members were blacks. Between 1948 and 1991, large numbers of people protested apartheid by staging boycotts, demonstrations, and strikes. Violence often broke out, and thousands of people, most of them blacks, were killed.".

             3.

             "But apartheid's effects continued even after the laws were repealed. Today, many blacks and other nonwhites continue to face unofficial segregation and discrimination in South Africa.".

             Apartheid is the policy of racial segregation formerly followed in South Africa. The word apartheid means separateness in the Afrikaans language, and it described the rigid racial division between the governing white minority population and the nonwhite majority population. Apartheid was the political policy for South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s.

             Apartheid laws classified people according to three major racial groups: white; Bantu, or black African; and Coloured, or people of mixed descent.