Three decades ago, on April 27, 1994, after centuries of white rule, Black South Africans voted in general elections for the first time. This marked the official end of apartheid rule, cemented days later when Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the country’s first Black president.

Since the arrival of Dutch settlers in the 1600s and British colonists in the 1700s and 1800s, South Africa had been a project that subjected Black people to systematically segregationist laws and practices.