Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be considered inferior because of your race? The people of South Africa had to endure racial inferiority during the apartheid era. Apartheid laws enacted by the South African government led to an unequal lifestyle for blacks and produced opposition. South Africa really began to suffer when apartheid was written into law. Apartheid was first introduced in the 1948 elections won by the Afrikaner National Party. The plan was to take the already existing segregation and expand it (Wright, 60). Apartheid was a system that racially segregated the population of South Africa and deemed non-whites inferior (“History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era”). Apartheid was designed to make it legal for Europeans to dominate the economy and politics (“History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era”). Apartheid was a set of unequal laws that favored whites (“History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era” ). The Race Classification Act, which divided everyone into four racial groups, white, black, colored, and Indian, was the first of many important laws (Evans, 8). Hundreds of thousands of black South Africans were forced to leave their homes and move to special reserves called “homelands” or Bantustans that were established for them (Evans, 8). There were twenty-three million black people and they were divided into nine tribal groups, Zulu, 8 ). Another important law was the Groups Area Act, which segregated the 23 million blacks into 14% of the land, leaving 86% of the land for the 4.8 million (Evans, 9). Under the laws of apartheid a minority… half of the paper… steals their own booklets (“Black Resistance to Apartheid”). “During 1980, there were 304 serious incidents involving the anti-apartheid struggle, including arrests, tear gas violence, stonings and strikes (“black resistance to apartheid”). In 1986, a violent conflict forced the government to declare a national state of emergency (Wright, 68). The Public Safety Act increased penalties such as fines, imprisonment and flogging for protesting against the law ("History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era"). in the apartheid era”). In 1994, the first free multiracial elections were held and the people voted to end apartheid (“History of South Africa in the Apartheid Era”). Nelson Mandela was elected president (Wright, 66). Opposition to apartheid helped change the situation in South Africa.