Apartheid Laws Are Dismantled in South Africa

Setting the scene

Decades of international sanctions, internal resistance led by the ANC, and negotiations between Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk dismantled apartheid laws that classified South Africans by race and denied Black citizens the vote.

What happened

South Africa held its first all-race democratic elections on April 26–29, 1994; the ANC won about 62 percent of the vote. Mandela was inaugurated president on May 10, 1994, in Pretoria before global leaders.

Why it still matters

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later examined apartheid-era crimes without blanket amnesty for all offenders. Memorable detail: millions of voters stood in lines for hours, many elderly people casting a ballot for the first time; some marked papers with a photograph of Mandela because they could not read.

Background

Mandela became president.