Editing Coloureds (section)

===Apartheid era===
[[File:ApartheidPopulationGroups.jpg|thumb|Explanation of South African identity numbers in an identity document during apartheid in terms of official White, Coloured and Indian population subgroups]]
Coloured people were subject to forced relocation. For instance, the government relocated Coloured from the urban Cape Town areas of [[District Six]], which was later bulldozed. Other areas they were forced to leave included [[Constantia, Cape Town|Constantia]], [[Claremont, Cape Town|Claremont]], [[Simon's Town]]. Inhabitants were moved to racially designated sections of the metropolitan area on the [[Cape Flats]]. Additionally, under apartheid, Coloured people received education inferior to that of Whites. It was, however, better than that provided to Black South Africans.

[[J. G. Strijdom]], known as "the Lion of the North", continued the impetus to restrict Coloured rights, in order to entrench the new-won [[Nasionale Party|National Party]] majority. Coloured participation on juries was removed in 1954, and efforts to [[Coloured vote constitutional crisis|abolish their participation on]] the common voters' roll in the [[Cape Province]] escalated drastically; it was [[South Africa Act Amendment Act, 1956|accomplished in 1956]] by a supermajority amendment to the [[Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951|1951 Separate Representation of Voters Act]], passed by Malan but held back by the judiciary as unconstitutional under the [[South Africa Act, 1909|South Africa Act]], the Union's effective constitution. In order to bypass this safeguard, enforced since 1909 to ensure [[Cape Qualified Franchise|Coloured political rights in the then-British Cape Colony]], Strijdom's government passed legislation to expand the number of Senate seats from 48 to 89. All of the additional 41 members hailed from the National Party, increasing its representation in the Senate to 77 in total. The Appellate Division Quorum Bill increased the number of judges necessary for constitutional decisions in the Appeal Court from five to eleven. Strijdom, knowing that he had his two-thirds majority, held a joint sitting of parliament in May 1956. The entrenchment clause regarding the Coloured vote, known as the South Africa Act, were thus eliminated and the Separate Representation of Voters Act passed, now successfully.

Coloureds were placed on a separate voters' roll from the 1958 election to the House of Assembly and forward. They could elect four Whites to represent them in the [[House of Assembly of South Africa|House of Assembly]]. Two Whites would be elected to the [[Cape Provincial Council]] and the [[Governor General of the Union of South Africa|governor general]] could appoint one [[Senate of South Africa|senator]]. Both blacks and Whites opposed this measure, particularly from the [[United Party (South Africa)|United Party]]&nbsp;and more liberal opposition. The [[Torch Commando]] was prominent, while the [[Black Sash]] (White women, uniformly dressed, standing on street corners with placards) also made themselves heard. In this way, the question of the Coloured vote became one of the first measures of the regime's unscrupulous nature and flagrant willingness to manipulate its inherited [[Westminster system]]. It would remain in power until 1994.

Many Coloureds refused to register for the new voters' roll and the number of Coloured voters dropped dramatically. In the next election, only 50.2% of them voted. They had no interest in voting for White representatives — an activity which many of them saw as pointless, and only persisted for ten years.

Under the [[Population Registration Act]], as amended, Coloureds were formally classified into various subgroups, including [[Cape Coloureds]], [[Cape Malays]] and "other coloured". A portion of the small [[Chinese South African]] community was also classified as a coloured subgroup.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120423220247/http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/memorials/wc/RaceClassificationBoard/article.aspx?id=591128 An appalling "science"]</ref><ref>
Graham Leach, ''South Africa: no easy path to peace'' (1986), [https://archive.org/details/southafricanoeas0000leac/page/70 p. 70]: Population Registration Act, 1959 cape coloured</ref>

In 1958, the government established the Department of Coloured Affairs, followed in 1959 by the Union for Coloured Affairs. The latter had 27 members and served as an advisory link between the government and the Coloured people.

The 1964 [[Coloured Persons Representative Council]] turned out to be a constitutional hitch{{clarify|date=January 2012}} which never really proceeded. In 1969, the Coloureds elected forty onto the council to supplement the twenty nominated by the government, taking the total number to sixty.

Following the [[South African constitutional reform referendum, 1983|1983 referendum]], in which 66.3% of White voters supported the change, the [[South African Constitution of 1983|Constitution]] was reformed to allow the Coloured and [[Indian South Africans|Indian]] minorities limited participation in separate and subordinate Houses in a [[tricameral]] [[Parliament of South Africa|Parliament]]. This was part of a change in which the Coloured minority was to be allowed limited rights and self-governance in "Coloured areas", but continuing the policy of denationalising the Black majority and making them involuntary citizens of independent homelands. The internal rationale was that South African whites, more numerous at the time than Coloureds and Indians combined, could bolster its popular support and divide the democratic opposition while maintaining a working majority. The effort largely failed, with the 1980s seeing increased disintegration of civil society and numerous states of emergency, with violence increasing from all racial groups. The separate arrangements were removed by the negotiations which took place from 1990 to [[South Africa general election, 1994|hold the first universal election]].