the.com/apartheid
A legal system of racial segregation in South Africa that stripped millions of their rights and dignity.
means A system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination enforced by law — specifically South Africa's policy from 1948 to the early 1990s that classified people by race and restricted where they could live, work, and belong.
from Afrikaans for 'apartness' or 'separateness,' built from apart (same word as in English) plus -heid, a suffix like English '-hood' (as in 'falsehood'). It entered English directly from Afrikaans in the mid-20th century as the name of the South African government's official policy, and the word has since become shorthand worldwide for any system of state-enforced racial separation.
- meaning
- afrikaans for apartness, dutch-rooted
- duration
- official policy in south africa 1948 to 1994
- classification
- government literally graded race by pencil-in-hair test
- end
- mandela freed 1990, became president 1994