On this day 25 May 1944, the then South African member of parliament, Danieel Francois Malan, used for the first time the term “apartheid” an Afrikaans word which means “apartness”.
Malan who was a retired church minister and held PhD in religion, argued that black people were inferior and that Christianity and supremacy of white people should be the policy of the government.
Four years later, he became South African prime minister, after winning the elections under the flag of National Party (NP) a party that he joined in 1915, a year after its formation.
The following year, 1949, he formalized apartheid and tried unsuccessfully to incorporate Lesotho, Botswana and Eswatini to be part of South Africa.
NP ruled using apartheid as a legal policy until 1991, shortly before the 1994 elections that were won by the African National Congress (ANC) booting NP out of power.
In 2005, NP merged with ANC and became a single party.
