| Summary/Abstract |
For many people, the term “apartheid” immediately brings to mind the segregation, discrimination, and repression of black South Africans during the decades of white minority rule there. In fact, the word itself means “apartness” in Afrikaans, and it was first used by the ruling party in South Africa in 1948 to describe the racial laws and regulations it imposed, purportedly to preserve the purity and primacy of the country’s white population. As the long struggle of black South Africans for equality and democracy gradually gained support around the world, the anti-apartheid movement emerged, and with its incessant calls to boycott, divest from, and sanction South Africa, it gradually turned the country into an international pariah, eventually helping to end apartheid in South Africa and establish a multiracial democracy there. It is this history that the term “apartheid” evokes, and it is what gives the word its emotional power.
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