The Apartheid Project 1948 - 1994
National Party takes power
D.F. Malan’s Afrikaner-based National Party (NP) wins a narrow election victory. For the next four decades, the NP will cling to power and institutionalise its ideology of racial ‘apartness’ — apartheid.
1948
Correspondence students graduate
Unisa holds its first graduation ceremony for students “tutored by post”.
1949
“Group Areas” enforced
Parliament passes the first Group Areas Act, which enforces the splitting of cities and towns into racially segregated areas. “Non-whites” living in “the wrong area” face brutal forced removals.
1950
China divides
After two decades of civil war across China, nationalist-controlled Taiwan and the communist-controlled mainland establish separate states. Chinese communism will influence many aspects of Africa’s liberation struggle and postcolonial emergence.
1950
Bantustans instituted
Malan’s government starts to institute “tribal homelands” (Bantustans to their critics), with the long-term aim of creating satellite states to receive black South Africans denaturalised from citizenship of an all-white South Africa.
1951
Last colleges fall away
Unisa’s last remaining constituent colleges, Rhodes and Potchefstroom, become independent universities — and Unisa’s new role as a distance learning institution starts to become paramount.
1951
Right-wing leanings
When The Star newspaper questions the war record of a recently appointed Unisa philosophy lecturer, Belgian-born Herman de Vleeschauwer (who had been sentenced to death for his crimes), Unisa’s right-leaning administration conceals that De Vleeschauwer had been a notorious Nazi collaborator.
1953
Revolution in Cuba
Fidel Castro leads an armed revolution against the American-dominated regime of President Fulgencio Batista and takes power in 1959. Later, Castro’s military interventions in southern Africa will counterweigh apartheid South Africa’s.
1953-59
A home of our own
After more than three decades of renting office space, Unisa begins moving into its own newly-constructed building in Skinner Street, Pretoria.
1953
Bantu Education institutionalised
The Bantu Education Act institutionalises racially separate educational facilities and imposes syllabi calculated to relegate black school leavers to the unskilled labour market.
1953
Freedom Charter adopted
The Congress of the People, a mass gathering of progressive organisations from across the country, adopts the Freedom Charter. The apartheid state responds by arresting 156 leaders in 1956 and trying them for high treason. By 1961, all 156 will have been acquitted.
1955
A fund-raising chancellor
Dr François de Villiers is appointed Chancellor. During his 20-year tenure, he will — at some cost to the University’s independence — draw substantial funding to Unisa from both government and the business sector.
1956
Anthropological museum underway
Unisa establishes its Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. The museum’s first artefact is a cast of the cranium of Homo neanderthalensis or “Neanderthal man”.
1957
Ghana achieves independence
Ghana, formerly the British Gold Coast, becomes the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from the colonising powers.
1957
First MA for an Indian South African
Bridglal Pachai becomes the first Indian South African to receive a master’s degree from Unisa for his groundbreaking thesis on Gandhi’s early career and years in South Africa.
1958
Deeper segregation of universities
The so-called “Extension of University Education Act” creates four new, “non-white” university colleges, and prohibits “non-whites” from registering at formerly open universities without written permission from the Minister of Internal Affairs.
1959
Federalism reborn under apartheid
Unisa is mandated to administer the syllabi and examinations of the new “non-white” colleges: Durban’s University College, and the university colleges of the Western Cape, the North, and Zululand.
1959
Bureau of Market Research
Through its Department of Business Economics, Unisa establishes the Bureau of Market Research. The Bureau’s surveys and seminars will prove popular with government and the business sector alike.
1960
Massacre at Sharpeville
Panicking police fire into a gathering of anti-Pass Law protesters and kill 69 people, many of whom are shot while fleeing. Across the country, intensified mass protests follow, and the United Nations calls on South Africa to abandon apartheid.
1960
Fine art department debuts
The Department of History of Arts and Fine Art makes a “modest debut” under University of Pretoria graduate Karin Skawran (who will be elevated from “Miss Skawran” to “Professor Skawran” in 1972).
1961
Verwoerd’s Republic
Led by hard-line nationalist Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa leaves the British Commonwealth and declares itself a republic. Hereafter, Verwoerd’s government refuses to accept black ambassadors from Commonwealth states.
1961
Cold War crisis
The Soviet Union places nuclear missiles in Cuba at close range to the US. Escalation towards nuclear war follows, but concessions from both the Soviet and American sides eventually defuse the crisis.
1962
Compact cassettes launched
Dutch manufacturer Philips introduces the standard compact audio cassette to the world. Easily posted, compact cassettes are an appealing instruction medium for distance learners such as Unisa’s.
1963
Developing business leadership
Unisa begins discussions about the introduction of a master’s degree in business leadership with South African commercial and industrial organisations. By 1969, Unisa’s School of Business Leadership is established.
1963-69
The Rivonia Trial
Ten opponents of apartheid, among them Nelson Mandela, face charges that include sabotage, which carries the death penalty. After a dignified and moving defence, eight are sentenced to life imprisonment.
1963-64
Enrolment from Robben Island
South African Communist Party activist Ahmed Kathrada, imprisoned on Robben Island after the Rivonia Trial, becomes the first of the Island’s many notable political prisoners to enrol with Unisa.
1965
Bilingualism threatened
Minister of Education Jan de Klerk lobbies to relocate Unisa to Johannesburg to serve purely as an Afrikaans-medium, residential university. Unisa’s Broederbond-connected principal, Samuel Pauw, stubbornly resists De Klerk’s plan.
1965
Early photocopying
Unisa becomes one of the first South African universities to acquire a photocopier — an American invention that only became widespread in the 1960s.
1967
SASO emerges
Steve Biko, Barney Pityana and others form the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), which calls on black students to articulate their own struggle and not be prescribed to by liberal whites.
1968
King assassinated
Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King had won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat America’s institutionalised racism through civil disobedience.
1968
A ten-switchboard exchange
A telephone exchange with ten switchboards, the largest manual exchange in the country, is installed in Unisa’s new Muckleneuk building. It will be replaced by an automatic exchange in 1976.
1969
Black South Africans lose citizenship
The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act designates all black South Africans as citizens of nominally independent “tribal homelands”, cancelling their South African citizenship and making them aliens in “white” South Africa.
1970
Email arrives
Using the ‘@’ sign to separate the individual user from the receiving computer, American programmer Ray Tomlinson implements the core principles of the email system that we use today.
1971
New technologies and old
Newly purchased machines duplicate 20,000 cassettes per month. Meanwhile, many study guides are switched from folio to A5 format to allow students to read more easily by candlelight.
1972
Muckleneuk opens
Unisa’s “imposing new home” on Muckleneuk Ridge is officially opened by State President J.J. “Jim” Fouché.
1973
Nursing at Unisa
Unisa’s Department of Nursing Science (now the Department of Health Studies) is established under Professor Charlotte Searle, “the doyenne of South African nursing” and a champion of equal opportunities for “non-white” nurses.
1975
Portugal withdraws from Mozambique
After a left-wing military coup in Lisbon, Portuguese forces are withdrawn from Mozambique. Rhodesia and South Africa’s borders will become exposed to liberation fighters hosted by Samora Machel’s newly independent state.
1975
Uprising in Soweto
High school students in Soweto, protesting against government’s enforcement of Afrikaans as the sole language of instruction, spark a series of countrywide protests that shake the apartheid state.
1976
Separate amenities scrapped
Unisa scraps its age-old racial separation of the toilets, tea rooms and other amenities provided to black and white staff.
1979
Independence for Zimbabwe
Rhodesia, whose white minority regime broke away from a decolonising Britain in 1965, holds democratic elections. Robert Mugabe becomes Prime Minister of the new state, Zimbabwe.
1980
AIDS observed
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is clinically observed for the first time in the United States. The AIDS pandemic will soon begin to devastate southern Africa and the developing world.
1981
First black professor
Deuteronomy “DBZ” Ntuli, an acclaimed writer in Zulu and lecturer in the Department of African Languages, is appointed as Unisa’s first black full professor.
1983
Uniting against apartheid
The United Democratic Front (UDF), a mass movement fighting for the overthrow of apartheid, is established as an umbrella body for civic associations, progressive churches, and trade and student unions.
1983
Women’s studies arrive
After years of resistance from the University’s more conservative administrators, Unisa’s Centre for Women’s Studies (later the Institute for Gender Studies) is founded.
1984
Soviet reforms begin
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union. His reforms will dissolve the Soviet bloc and defuse predictions that a black-ruled South Africa could become a communist state.
1985
States of emergency
Amid swelling mass protests, President P.W. Botha announces the first of a series of national states of emergency. These brutally curtail civil freedoms and ultimately hasten apartheid’s end.
1985
Mandela completes law degree
Moved from Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison to more comfortable conditions at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, Nelson Mandela is able to complete his LLB with Unisa.
1988-89
World Wide Web invented
British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee integrates two existing technologies — hyperlinked computer text and the Internet — to create the World Wide Web.
1989
Towards a new South Africa
In a speech delivered on 2 February, P.W. Botha’s successor, F.W. de Klerk, unbans the leading liberation movements and enters into “talks about talks” aimed at transforming South Africa. On 11 February, Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster prison.
1990
Namibia gains independence
After a bitter struggle led by the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) against apartheid South African rule, an intervention by the United Nations results in South Africa granting full independence to Namibia.
1990
Adequacy of support challenged
In coordination with the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), an international commission condemns Unisa for accepting underprivileged black students’ fees while not offering adequate academic support.
1992
Horror at Boipatong
At Boipatong, near Vereeniging, machete-wielding supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party massacre over 40 “ANC people”, including infants. The police are accused of complicity, and South Africa’s negotiations towards democracy teeter.
1992
Last Broederbond Vice-Chancellor
The vice-chancellorship of Broederbond member and National Party stalwart Professor Cas van Vuuren ends. He is replaced in 1994 by Professor Marinus Wiechers, a reformer who attempts to make sweeping changes.
1993
Student leaders banned
Severe restrictions on freedom of movement and association are imposed on leaders from both the black South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) and the white liberal National Union of South African Students (NUSAS).
1973
Civil rights vs segregated education
The US Supreme Court hands down a landmark ruling in Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka (a city in Kansas), declaring racially segregated schooling to be unconstitutional.