In 1948, the National Party (NP), representing Afrikaners, won the national election on a platform of racism and segregation under the slogan of 'apartheid’. Apartheid built upon earlier laws, but made segregation more rigid and enforced it more aggressively. All Government action and response was decided according to the policy of apartheid. In turn, apartheid failed to respond effectively and adequately to concerns that had led to intermittent labour and civic unrest that erupted in the aftermath of World War II. Consequently, throughout the 1950s unrest in African, Coloured and Indian communities escalated, becoming more frequent and determined. Labour unrest too was in evidence during this period.
After the 1948 elections, as the liberation movements intensified their efforts, the Government came down heavily on them. It introduced the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950. However, in a determined reaction, the liberation movements had assumed a more combative posture. This was spelled out in the Programme of Action adopted by the ANC in 1949. Under this policy the first major action was the Defiance Campaign launched in 1952. . This Campaign brought Africans, Coloureds and Indians together against the common enemy and was a direct reaction by the liberation movements to the unjust laws passed by the government. Some Whites also joined the struggle alongside Africans, Indians and Coloureds in different campaigns.
Other campaigns included the Western Areas Campaign from 1953 to 1957 and intended to undermine efforts to forcibly remove the community from Sophiatown to Soweto. The Bantu Education Campaign was a reaction to the introduction of Bantu Education in 1953. The Congress of the People gathrered in Kliptown in 1955 to adopt the Freedom Charter and the women’s anti pass march in 1956 expressed women’s abhorrence of the extension of pass laws to them was expressed.
There were other forms of unrest that were spontaneous, largely unorganized reactions to apartheid measures. Foremost among these were bus boycotts that were responses to increased transport costs, boycotts and attacks on municipal beerhalls that were intended to undermine African Women’s source of livelihood from proceeds of beer brewing and reactions to stricter enforcement of influx control regulations.
Institutionalising Apartheid
National Party leaders D. F. Malan and Hendrik F. Verwoerd were the architects of apartheid. Malan used the term "apartheid" from the 1930s as he distanced his party from British traditions of liberalism and the earlier policy of segregation, which he saw as too lenient towards Blacks. Verwoerd, educated in the Netherlands, the United States, and Germany, was the main ideologue of apartheid. He became Native Affairs Minister in the early 1950s and Prime Minister in 1958.