apartheid, (Afrikaans: “apartness”) policy that governed relations between South Africa’s white minority and nonwhite majority for much of the latter half of the 20th century, sanctioning racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites. Although the legislation that formed the foundation of apartheid had been repealed by the early 1990s, the social and economic repercussions of the discriminatory policy persisted into the 21st century. Racial segregation, sanctioned by law, was widely practiced in South Africa before 1948. But when the National Party, led by Daniel F. Malan, gained office that year, it extended the policy and gave it the