Community House | |
---|---|
General information | |
Location | Salt River, Cape Town |
Address | 41 Salt River Road, Salt River, Cape Town, 7925 |
Coordinates | 33°55′48″S18°27′27″E / 33.929998°S 18.4576°E |
Website | |
communityhouse |
Community House situated in Salt River, Cape Town is a unique and historic site of living heritage. It has always been known as a site of activism from around the mid-1980s which has shaped and continues to shape the socio-political landscape of its extended communities. The building itself houses NGO's and Trade Unions as well as a labour and community history museum centered on the Trade Union Library and its archive. It presently houses twenty-four organizations that focus on labour research, popular education, gender advocacy, HIV/AIDS education, environmental issues, youth development, media production and union organization. [1]
In the mid-1980s, anti-apartheid trade unions and civic and service organizations began searching for a new headquarters for their resistance campaign. [2] The Western Province Council of Churches (WPCC) and an NGO, the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT) met this need. [3] They purchased a dilapidated auto workshop in Salt River, an area known for its textile and light metal factories and which marks the origins of industrial unions in the province.
As a living heritage or intangible cultural heritage site, the significance if the site has the potential to change over time as new information arises and perspectives and interpretations change. The site was declared a provincial heritage site in 2010.
Apartheid South Africa in the mid-1980s experienced increasing levels of repression by the state. This led to a revival of the worker's movement and an increased effort in the struggle for liberation. Community House was the building used by the organisations that formed the backbone of the anti-apartheid and labour movement. From this site some of the largest strikes and anti-apartheid campaigns were organised. Most notably the historic Purple Rain Protest which took place in September 1989 and saw 100,000 people marching through the streets of Cape Town. This as well as many other meetings mark the building's heritage and historic significance. It is the only site in South Africa that provided and continues to provide a collective home for those involved in the broader labour movement. And, since its inception, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), its union affiliates and organisations servicing and supporting workers, have been the backbone of Community House. [1]
Community House is a centre that has preserved and commemorated the memory of many anti-apartheid activists who demonstrated selfless dedication to the struggle for the liberation of the South African people. Some of these heroes played a role in the revival of trade unions while others left the country for military training while others were forced into exile. All those commemorated were detained by apartheid's security police and all with the exception of one were murdered by the apartheid state. [2]
Their histories of struggle and sacrifice represent the histories of thousands of others who were detained, tortured and killed by the apartheid regime. That Community House continues to function as a site of activism, reinforcing its legacy, is in itself an act of remembering – promoting ideas that sustained the struggles of the past and reinforcing the memories of those who sacrificed their lives for liberation.
Civic society groups currently or previously located at Community House include: [10]
Community House was declared a provincial heritage site by Heritage Western Cape on 19 February 2010 in the terms of Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Ac. [11] This gives the site grade II status and provides the site with protection under South African Heritage law.
Mpumalanga is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares borders with the South African provinces of Limpopo to the north, Gauteng to the west, the Free State to the southwest, and KwaZulu-Natal to the south. The capital is Mbombela.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions is a trade union federation in South Africa. It was founded in 1985 and is the largest of the country's three main trade union federations, with 21 affiliated trade unions.
Helen Beatrice Joseph OMSG was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Born in Sussex, England, Helen graduated with a degree in English from the University of London in 1927 and then departed for India, where she taught for three years at Mahbubia School for girls in Hyderabad. In about 1930 she left India for England via South Africa. However, she settled in Durban, where she met and married a dentist, Billie Joseph, whom she later divorced.
District Six is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1966, the apartheid government announced that the area would be razed and rebuilt as a "whites only" neighbourhood under the Group Areas Act. Over the course of a decade, over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed and in 1970 the area was renamed Zonnebloem, a name that makes reference to an 18th century colonial farm. At the time of the proclamation, 56% of the district’s property was White-owned, 26% Coloured-owned and 18% Indian-owned. Most of the residents were Cape Coloureds and they were resettled in the Cape Flats. The vision of a new white neighbourhood was not realised and the land has mostly remained barren and unoccupied. The original area of District Six is now partly divided between the suburbs of Walmer Estate, Zonnebloem, and Lower Vrede, while the rest is generally undeveloped land.
David Webster was a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist. He worked as an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was a senior lecturer at the time of his assassination.
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was an important force for liberalism and later radicalism in South African student anti-apartheid politics. Its mottos included non-racialism and non-sexism.
Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the largest ethnically Indian-populated cities outside of India.
Barry Streek was a liberal South African political journalist and anti-apartheid activist.
The Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) was a trade union federation in South Africa.
Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors of South African society and took forms ranging from social movements and passive resistance to guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.
Looksmart Khulile Ngudle [22 May 1922–5 September 1963 (aged 41)] was a South African politician. He was a Member of the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP), an Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Commander and South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) leader in the Western Cape. Ngudle's death is controversial, as he was the first person to die in detention during South Africa's Apartheid Era.
Louis Marius Schoon was a white anti-apartheid activist of Afrikaner descent. Marius died from lung cancer, after a long call from Nelson Mandela, thanking him for his sacrifice against the struggle.
The David Webster House is at 13 Eleanor Street in Troyeville and it is important not only because this is where the anti-apartheid activist David Webster lived but it is also where he was killed by a government assassin. The house is still in private ownership but it is decorated to commemorate his life.
Trafalgar High School is a public English medium co-educational secondary school in District Six of Cape Town in South Africa. It was the first school built in Cape Town for coloured and black students. The school took a leading role in protesting against apartheid policies. It celebrated its centenary in 2012 and is still running and was recently declared a heritage site.
Harold Cressy High School is a secondary school in District Six of Cape Town in South Africa. It was founded in January 1951 as the Cape Town Secondary School. The school has played a substantial role in South African history during the apartheid period and the building is identified as an important landmark.
The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was a political lobby group formed in 1954. At FEDSAW's inaugural conference, a Women's Charter was adopted. Its founding was spear-headed by Lillian Ngoyi.
The Beer Hall Boycott of South Africa was a nationwide, women-led campaign of boycotting and demonstrating against municipal beer halls stretching from roughly the 1920s to the 1960s. The Native Beer Act of 1908 had made it illegal for South African women to brew traditional beer. Police raided homes and destroyed home-brewed liquor so that men would use municipal beerhalls. In response, women attacked the beerhalls and destroyed equipment and buildings.
The Mayibuye Uprising was a sequence of protests and demonstrations, led by the African National Congress, South African Indian Congress and the African People's Organisation that took place around No.2 Location Galeshewe, in Kimberley, on 7–8 November 1952. The uprising was not an isolated event, but part of the Defiance Campaign which started in June 1952. The aim of the campaign was to peacefully defy the laws of the apartheid government across the country.
Christina 'Chrissie' Jasson was a South African clerk and trade unionist from Port Elizabeth, who stood accused of treason at the Rivonia Trial.
Florence Matomela OLG (1910–1969) was a South African anti-pass law activist, communist, civil rights campaigner, ANC veteran, teacher and mother who dedicated her life to fighting against Apartheid laws in South Africa. Matomela was the provincial organiser of the African National Congress Women's League (ANCWL) and vice-president of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) in the mid 1950s.