Race Laws in South Africa: 317 laws and when they were introduced and repealed, 142 laws still operative

race-laws-south-africa.R

library(rio)
library(tidyverse)
library(stringr)
library(ggtext)  # For richtext (Unicode text handling)

# https://racelaw.co.za/index-of-race-law/

url <- "https://racelaw.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2025-01-09-Index-of-Race-Law.xlsx"
index_version <- "9 January 2025"

df_raw <- import(url)

df <- df_raw |>
  mutate(i = row_number(),
         i_rev = rev(i),
         year = as.numeric(Year),
         status = as.factor(case_when(
           str_detect(`Operative Status`, "Repealed") ~ "Repealed",
           str_detect(`Operative Status`, "Operative") ~ "Operative")),
         law = as.factor(case_when(
           str_detect(`Race Law Status`, "Racialised") ~ "Racialized",
           str_detect(`Race Law Status`, "Deracialised") ~ "Deracialized",
           TRUE ~ `Race Law Status`)),
         repealed_year = if_else(status == "Repealed", as.numeric(str_extract(`Operative Status`, "\\d{4}")), NA),
         start_date = as_date(paste0(year, "-01-01")),
         end_date = as_date(if_else(is.na(repealed_year), as.character(Sys.Date()), paste0(repealed_year, "-01-01"))),
  )

n_operative_laws <- sum(df$status == "Operative")

themify <- function(base_size = 30) {
  theme_classic() +
    theme(
      text = element_text(size = base_size),
      plot.margin = margin(5, 5, 5, 5, "mm"),
      plot.title = element_text(size = base_size + 27, face = "bold", hjust = .5),
      plot.subtitle = element_text(size = base_size + 5, color = "#777", face = "plain", hjust = .5, margin = margin(b = 25)),
      plot.caption = element_text(color = "#777", size = base_size - 4),
      axis.line.y = element_blank(),
      axis.text = element_text(size = base_size),
      axis.ticks.length.x = unit(3, "mm"),
      axis.ticks.y = element_blank(),
      axis.title.y = element_blank(),
      legend.position = "inside",
      legend.position.inside = c(.2, .3),
      legend.background = element_rect(fill = "#eee"),
      legend.key.size = unit(12, "mm"),
      legend.key.width = unit(12, "mm"),
      legend.key = element_rect(linewidth = 0, fill = "transparent"),
      legend.title = element_text(size = 20, face = "bold"),
      legend.text = element_text(size = 20)
    )
}

colors <- c("#89CBEC", "#147635", "#CB6878", "#A94698")  # Color-blind palette

df |>
  ggplot() +
  geom_vline(aes(xintercept = as.Date("1994-01-01")), alpha = 0.2) +
  geom_segment(aes(x = start_date, xend = end_date, y = i_rev, yend = i_rev, color = law), linewidth = .6) +
  scale_x_date(date_breaks = "10 year", date_labels = "%Y") +
  scale_y_continuous(labels = NULL) +
  scale_color_manual(values = colors) +
  annotate("richtext", size = 5, x = as.Date("1976-01-01"), y = max(df$i) + 10, color = "#666", label.color = NA, label = "&larr; Pre-Democratic Era") +
  annotate("richtext", size = 5, x = as.Date("2009-01-01"), y = max(df$i) + 10, color = "#666", label.color = NA, label = "Democratic Era &rarr;") +
  themify(base_size = 14) +
  labs(title = "Race Laws in South Africa",
       subtitle = glue::glue(
         "{NROW(df)} laws and when they were introduced and repealed\n",
         "{n_operative_laws} laws still operative"),
       caption = paste0(
         "\nGraphics: Peter M. Dahlgren (https://peterdahlgren.com)",
         "\nSource: Index of Race Law from the South African Institute of Race Relations, IRR (https://racelaw.co.za/index-of-race-law/)",
         "\nIndex version: ", index_version),
       alpha = "Status of Law",
       color = "Type of Law",
       x = NULL,
       y = NULL) +
  guides(color = guide_legend(override.aes = list(linewidth = 5)))

ggsave("race-laws-south-africa.pdf", width = 210, height = 297, units = "mm", scale = 1, device = cairo_pdf, family = "DejaVu Sans")
ggsave("race-laws-south-africa.png", width = 210, height = 297, units = "mm", scale = 1)