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 It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.
1952. Natives Laws Amendment Act No 54
This is an amendment of the NATIVE LABOUR REGULAITON ACT of 1911 and the NATIVES URBAN AREAS CONSOLIDATION ACT of 1945 (PoseI1993: 414).
This act "limited the rights of Africans to live in urban areas" (Horowitz 1991: 11). It "extended influx controls to all urban areas and to Black women who had previously not been affected [but see the NATIVES URBAN AREAS AMENDMENT ACT of 1930]. It provided that: any Black who wanted to move to another area had to register at a labour bureau; Blacks should be prohibited from moving to any area where it was unlikely they would find employment; Blacks could remain in a town for up to 72 hours without requiring a permit but that the burden of proof over how long they had been there rested with the Blacks; and 'agitators' could be deported from any trouble area without recourse to the courts" (Riley 1991: 31f).
This act also includes the most often cited version of the infamous Section 10, which "limited Africans with a right to live permanently in the urban areas to those who were born there, those who had lived there continuously for fifteen years, and those who had worked continuously for the same employer for ten years" (Davenport 1987: 373) plus "the wives and dependent children of the [above qualified] people" (PoseI1993: 414). "Africans who did not fall into one of these ... categories were treated as 'temporary sojourners' in an urban area, and could not remain there longer than 72 hours without securing official permission" (PoseI1993: 414). Dyzenhaus (1990: 40) sees Section 10 together with the POPULATION REGISTRATION ACT of 1950 and the ABOLITION OF PASSES AND COORDINATION OF DOCUMENTS ACT of 1952 as the key elements of apartheid. It should be noted that there seems to be quite a confusion with regard to the origin of Section lOin the literature: some contributors in Bonner et al. (1993) associate the Section 10 with the NATIVES URBAN AREAS CONSOLIDATION ACT of 1945 (Nattrass 1993: 47; Posel 1993: 414), which seem to be its true origin; Crush et al. (1991: 146) connect "Section 10 entitlements" with the NATIVES LAWS AMENDMENT ACT of 1945 (probably is a misnomer); Price (1991: 20, and elsewhere) refers to Section 10 as if it was included in the GROUP AREAS ACT of 1950; Davenport (1987) associates Section 10 with the NATIVES LAWS AMENDMENT ACT of 1952 on page 373 but with some unspecified amendment act (but not the same) on page 549 (possibly the NATIVES URBAN AREAS AMENDMENT ACT of 1952); Horowitz (1991: 11) seems likewise to associate it with NATIVES LAWS AMENDMENT ACT of 1952; and Worden (1994: 98+108) refers to it as part of the NATIVES URBAN AREAS AMENDMENT ACT of 1955.