The Immorality Act criminalizes interracial relationships

Socialist organizations united in Cape Town to form the CPSA. The party later adopted a Black-majority orientation and became an important ally of national liberation and labour movements.

The state used troops, artillery and aircraft against striking white mineworkers. The revolt also exposed the racial labour order because many strikers demanded protection of skilled jobs for whites.

The act treated African urban residents as temporary labourers, empowered municipalities to segregate housing and strengthened controls over African movement into towns.

Parliament recognized Afrikaans alongside English. The measure strengthened Afrikaner nationalism within a state that excluded the Black majority from national political power.

The act expanded executive control over African communities and empowered the governor-general to move people and govern by proclamation, weakening legal protections and African land rights.

The act enfranchised white women but not Black women. By enlarging the white electorate, it diluted the influence of the limited number of African men still qualified to vote in the Cape.

Hundreds of delegates from political, religious and professional bodies gathered to coordinate opposition to the Hertzog government's bills attacking African land and voting rights.

The act removed African voters in the Cape from the common voters' roll and substituted limited, segregated representation. It was a decisive attack on remaining African political rights.

The law formalized African reserve areas and created the South African Native Trust. Although it promised additional land, it entrenched territorial segregation and enabled further removals.

Parliament chose war on Germany and replaced Prime Minister Hertzog with Jan Smuts. Black South Africans served and worked for the war effort while racial inequality continued at home.