opulation Registration Act was passed in South Africa. It required that all South Africans be racially classified into one of three categories: white, black or colored (meaning of mixed decent). In 1951, the Bantu Authorities Act established reserves known as homelands. Homelands were independent states to which each black African was assigned by the government. Voting rights previously held by black South African citizens were withdrawn, and all political rights including voting rights for black South African citizens were then restricted to the designated homeland. In hindsight, creation of homelands was a recipe disaster as well as for continued misery and poverty for millions of South Africans. Rather than promise a future of peaceful co-existence, these homelands virtually guaranteed a continuation of conflict and violence. They proposed a Bantustan, a 'state' with a dependent economy, no contiguous territory and no substantial power, where blacks and mixed race couples could be exploited, controlled, restricted and confined. A dependent Bantustan alongside an apartheid state becomes a mockery of the concept of self-determination.
Other laws regulating racial interactions and limiting rights for the black or mixed race majority included:
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949
The Populations Registeration Act of 1950
The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950
The Group Areas Act of 1950 [which barred blacks and others from certain areas and certain neighborhoods]
The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 whch established, among other things, segrgated toilets and segregated eating establishments
The Bantu Education Act of 1953 which limited educational opportunities for blacks
The Mines and Work Act of 1956 finalizing and legitimizing racial discrimiation in employment
The Promotion of Self Government Act of 1958 under which nominally independent "homelands" were established for black peopl...