District Six Museum, Cape Town

In Cape Town, South Africa, the District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant St.; phone 461-8745) memorializes an important chapter in that country’s history — when an entire neighborhood was bulldozed at the height of apartheid. Being a civil rights activist, on my trip in March ’04 I was attracted to this museum.

Forty years ago, Cape Town’s Sixth District, near Table Bay, was a mixed-race, multiethnic, working-class neighborhood. An estimated 60,000 people — Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Hindu — lived there. Several times the white supremacist government had ordered the district to be segregated. Finally, beginning in 1965, the government sent in trucks and bulldozers, forced the people out of their homes and demolished the buildings. The empty District Six land was then designated a “whites only” area.

The museum is housed in one of the few remaining original buildings, a former church. The floor of the museum shows a map of the streets of District Six, and many people have marked where their homes were. Photographs from decades ago depict the vibrant daily life in the community, with people hanging out the laundry, getting a haircut, shopping, going to school, etc. Many people who actually experienced District Six have written their memories on a large fabric panel. A gift shop features books on the apartheid era of South Africa.

Admission is free, although a donation is appreciated.

A plaque on the cornerstone of the church which houses the District Six Museum reads, “ALL WHO PASS BY — Remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of the city, and were forced by law to leave their homes because of the color of their skins. FATHER, FORGIVE US.”

VERN LEWIS
Atlanta, GA