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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

1955. Native Urban Areas Amendment Act

Davenport (1987: 548) lists seven amendment dates for the NATIVES URBAN AREAS ACT of 1923, but 1955 is not among them.

Nevertheless, according to Christopher (1994: 122), it was "introduced to remove such concentrations of Blacks as servants living in central city blocks of flats. [Prime Minister] Dr Verwoerd suggested that the arbitrary number of five Black servants per block of flats was a 'wise' number to prevent overcrowding." Moreover, it "demonstrated the triumph of a more 'practical' approach to segregation over the 'total' segregation of men like Eiselen who argued that all African economic activity and labour should be concentrated in the reserves" (Worden 1994: 98+108).

Worden (1994: 98) associates the famous Section 10 with this act. See the NATIVES URBAN AREAS CONSOLIDATION ACT of 1945.

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