History of South Africa (1948–1994)

In the history of South Africa, the Apartheid Era (1948–1994) was the period of white-minority rule established with the promulgation of the Apartheid system of racialist segregation in 1948. The Apartheid era began with the election of the National Party (NP) in the 1948 South African general election whose governments established white minority rule of a majority black African country. In the 1990s, formal negotiations to end apartheid and the white-minority government of the National Party culminated in the 1994 South African general election, wherein all South Africans of every race were free to vote for their government.