South Africa’s Apartheid Regime Condemned By The United Nations Fifty Years …

While Americans exercise their right to vote today, South Africans are quietly commemorating a step toward their own democratic existence.

On November 6, 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning South Africa’s racist apartheid policies, calling for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation. Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, was jailed the following year.

It would take another thirty two years before South Africa arrived at a wholly democratic state when a multiracial, multiparty transitional government was approved in 1993 and the country held its first democratic elections in 1994, appointing Nelson Mandela as President.

Check out a selection of images from the exhibition “Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life” on view at the International Center of Photography in New York City through January 6, 2013.

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• Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial, December 19, 1956.

  Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg.

• South Africa goes on trial. Police and crowd outside court. The whole world was watching when the three major sabotage trials started in Pretoria, Cape Town and Maritzburg. Outside the palace of Justice during the Rivonia Trial, 1963.

  © Baileys Archives.

• The 29 ANC Women’s League women are being arrested by the police for demonstrating against the permit laws, which prohibited them from entering townships without a permit, and were later kept in Boksburg Prison for 14 days. 26th August 1952.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• South Africa goes on trial. Police outside the court. The whole world was watching when the three major sabotage trials started in Pretoria, Cape Town and Maritzburg. Outside the palace of Justice during the Rivonia Trial, 1963.

  © Baileys Archives.

• SACP banner displayed at the funeral of the Cradock 4 (Matthew Goniwe, Ford Calata, Sparrow Mkonto, Sicelo Mhlauli) at Lingelihle Township,Cradock, Eastern Cape., July 20, 1985.

• Harriet Gavshon in Jan Smuts Ave., Johannesburg. Part of a Black Sash protest stand in which protesters had to stand alone, or be arrested as an illegal gathering, July 19, 1985.

• Sisulu released. South Africa, Soweto, 1989.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Right Wing. South Africa, Pretoria, 1990.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Mandela released. South Africa, Cape, Paarl, 1990.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Right Wing. South Africa, Pretoria, 1991.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• The 94 election. South Africa, Soweto, 1994.

  Courtesy of the artist.

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Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/south-africas-apartheid-condemned-by-united-nations-fifty-years_n_2083761.html