How similar were Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa?

The United States of America under Jim Crow laws (1877-1960s), as well as South Africa under the Apartheid regime (1948-1994) were very similar in terms of their main objectives and ideologies. Both were systems of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination in which the principal aim was to maintain white supremacy and control over the lives of non-white in socioeconomic and political matters. However, the ways in which both of these systems executed their plans to reach these goals were very different in terms of the language of and justifications for discrimination, the nature and role of violence and the legal framework of discrimination. In this comparative essay, I will discuss to what extent the two institutions are similar, but also in what ways they are different from each other. 

Firstly, the legal framework as a justification for discrimination in both Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa both had the main goal of segregating whites and blacks to maintain white dominance in social, political and economic aspects. Therefore, these laws were solely established to enforce segregation and marginalize the non-white population in the United States as much as they were in South Africa. However, there were many differences in terms of implementation in the two cases. In America, Jim Crow laws were the general term, however the actual laws that were part of this system varied from state to state, creating a mixed set of segregationist policies. For example, all of the southern states implemented literacy tests as a passage to be able to vote in an election, but the contents of these tests varied within each state. Louisiana, for instance, is presumably the most striking of the tests. Made up of ridiculous, deliberately complicated unanswerable questions to evoke mental contortions and confusion, this literacy test was designed to be impossible for specifically black people, especially since most white people did not even have to do it due to grandfather clauses, a system that allowed Americans to vote with no need of taking a literacy test or the poll tax only if their grandfather was allowed to vote. In contrast, the “literacy test” of South Carolina was rather an application to vote, in which applicants were to read and write a section of the Constitution of South Carolina. Alternatively, South Africa’s legal framework was more comprehensive and uniform, extending on a nationwide level. The most notable of these laws include the Group Areas Act, Bantustan system, and Bantu education. Another example of Apartheid South Africa’s most historically significant laws is the Pass Laws Act, which consisted of all South Africans carrying a document at all times which included personal records in order to restrict the movement of non-whites, given that this passbook stated as well their skin color. This enforced racial segregation throughout the whole country as it was not just implemented in one area, but rather the entire nation. Therefore, while both countries did share the fundamental idea of racial segregation, the consistency of these frameworks varied significantly.

In addition, Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa were both deeply rooted in the belief of white superiority. This was made evident in the language used by both of these systems. For instance, both of the regimes used an ideological cover to justify their racist acts and frame segregation in order to keep the society civilized, such as ‘separate development’ in South Africa, which was illustrated as a system that would benefit both races and the southern states in America constantly mentioning the maintaining of southern culture and states’ rights. However, on a lot of occasions the language used in both countries was notably different. While South Africa strived to maintain this subtle, ideologically covered vocabulary to distort and mask the harsh reality of segregation, the supporters of America’s Jim Crow laws often used more explicitly, blatantly racist language such as ‘white supremacy’ and ‘negro inferiority’. Like the previously mentioned idea of ‘separate development’, the Apartheid government’s phrases to support the system were much more carefully selected to sound scientific and precise as a way to be more trustworthy and appeal South Africans to support them, whereas the crude, oppressive language of Jim Crow era America was commonly used on a daily basis not just by the state legislatures, but also in casual conversations between Americans, and by the media as well as terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The comparison between language and justifications for segregation used in both South Africa and the United States of America highlight how the execution of Apartheid and Jim Crow’s segregationist plans differed significantly despite having the same ideological foundations.

Finally, the nature and role of violence in both Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa were to enforce white supremacy and establish boundaries between races. As a consequence of the violence manifested by both of these systems, the affected populations were left traumatised and victimised. However, there were numerous differences between the violent acts that occurred in both countries. During the Jim Crow era in the United States, violence was more frequent and cruel. This violence was mostly targeted towards people as individuals in the form of lynchings or race riots between 1877 and the 1950s. Lynchings and race riots are acts of racial violence, where in the US, extrajudicial killings and mob violence targeted African Americans. Extrajudicial killings were also very common during this time, especially as a consequence of even the slightest infraction from an African American. A historical example is the incident related to Isaac Woodworth Jr., an African American from South Carolina who got his eyes gouged out by a white police officer in 1946, solely due to the slight ‘offense’ of asking a bus driver to stop so he could use the bathroom. On the contrary, acts of violence in South Africa were more systematic and organized, and less crude than those in the USA. In South Africa, violence was less personal and targeted, so the response to anti-apartheid protests were generally state-sanctioned beatings, torture and killings. For example, the Sharpeville Massacre took place on the 21st of March, 1960. In this tragic event, white policemen in Sharpeville in South Africa killed 69 unarmed protesters, injuring 200 more as a reaction to the liberation struggles and the African National Congress’s initially peaceful resistance to apartheid. In relation to this, it is evident that violence in the USA was generally incentivized by individuals and groups that had no connection to the state such as lynch mobs and the KKK, but even so, those that were linked to the state–such as the police–often turned a blind eye to these occurrences. South Africa’s nature of violence was different in this sense, given that it was mostly executed by state institutions in a more disciplined fashion than that in America. Therefore, while both segregationist systems used violence to support their objectives, the nature and role of that violence was different between the two.

To conclude, it is clear how Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa shared the idea to maintain white dominance through state institutions enforcing segregation, the two systems had very different methods to assert this white superiority. While both were supported by strong legal framework, the consistency and comprehension of these laws differed considerably. South Africa’s legislation for Apartheid was more nationwide, while USA’s Jim Crow laws were more prominent towards the deep south. The language and justification of both Jim Crow America and Apartheid South Africa was also very different, with Apartheid language being more subtle and ideologically constructed and Jim Crow language being more shamelessly racist and derogatory. Furthermore, the nature and role of violence had even more different approaches, with Jim Crow violence being more brutal and personal and Apartheid violence being more systematic and state-sanctioned. These similarities and differences highlight the relationship between communication, law and violence in both nations, which shows that despite them both being alike and having extremely similar objectives, the unique approaches they each took towards white supremacy historically shaped the segregationist movements of both countries in distinct ways.

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