A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa offers a meticulous year-by-year chronicle of apartheid-era politics, law, and society, compiled by the South African Institute of Race Relations. Covering developments in 1972, this volume documents shifts across white political parties, debates within the Coloured and Indian representative councils, and the growth of Black Consciousness organizations. It details the policies of the homelands, state security measures, and trials under repressive laws, while also tracing church resistance, student movements, and the tightening grip of censorship. Through its structured presentation of legislation, population data, and official policy, the survey captures the apparatus of apartheid alongside emerging forms of opposition and dissent.

What distinguishes the survey is its comprehensive breadth: from by-elections and Afrikaner nationalist secret societies to grassroots trade union efforts, church-state conflict, and the international dimensions of South Africa’s isolation. With appendices cataloging legislation and statistical tables, the volume became a vital annual reference for journalists, scholars, and activists alike. Today it endures as a critical historical record of apartheid’s institutional machinery, the contested terrain of race relations, and the complex interplay between repression and resistance at a pivotal moment in South Africa’s twentieth-century history.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.