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:
“You are even a world,
a planet,
and pass from history
and the day’s event.
to myth and phantasy,”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Nothing is accidental in the universe—this is one of my Laws of Physics—except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)