Pass laws in South Africa were designed to segregate the population and severely limit the movements of the non-white populace. This legislation was one of the dominant features of the country's apartheid system. The Black population was required to carry these pass books with them when outside their homelands or designated areas. Failure to produce a pass often resulted in the person being arrested. Any white person, even a child, could ask a black African to produce his or her pass.
Read more about Pass Laws: History, Natives (Urban Areas) Act, Pass Laws Act
Famous quotes containing the words pass and/or laws:
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new morality.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)