The Separate Amenities Act was passed in South Africa in 1953 and has been likened to the Jim Crow laws passed in some Southern states in the United States. The Separate Amenities Act decreed that all public facilities and public vehicles, such as trams or buses, be segregated. This was done to keep the Black and white races separate.

Unlike in the American South, however, there was no legal requirement that the facilities for Black people and white people be "equal." While that legal requirement did very little to nothing to ensure Black people would have equal facilities in the United States, it did at least make a nod toward the concept of equality. As might be expected, the preponderance of public funds in South Africa under the Act went to public facilities for white people.

By the late 1980s, however, the tide had turned against apartheid, in part due to international pressure. In 1989, President de Klerk repealed the act that segregated South African beaches, and on June 20, 1990, the South African Parliament voted to repeal the Separate Amenities Act. This was finalized in October of 1990, when parliament passed the Discriminatory Legislation regarding Public Amenities Repeal Act. The Act's stated purpose was to do away with the former legalized racial segregation in South Africa.