District Six in 2014District Six memorial plaqueANC election poster linking rival parties to the history of forced removals.
District Six (Afrikaans: Distrik Ses) is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1966, the apartheid government (the National Party) announced that the area would be razed and rebuilt as a "whites only" neighbourhood under the Group Areas Act.[1] 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.[2][3][1] At the time of the proclamation, 56% of the district’s property was White-owned, 26% Coloured-owned and 18% Indian-owned.[4] Most of the residents were Cape Coloureds and they were resettled in the Cape Flats.[5][1] The vision of a new white neighbourhood was not realised and the land has mostly remained barren and unoccupied.[1] 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.
The area was named in 1966 as the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town. The area began to grow after the freeing of the enslaved in 1833. The District Six neighbourhood is bounded by Sir Lowry Road on the north, Buitenkant Street to the west, Philip Kgosana Drive on the south and Mountain Road to the East. By the turn of the century it was already a lively community made up of former slaves, artisans, merchants and other immigrants, as well as many Malay people brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company during its administration of the Cape Colony. It was home to almost a tenth of the city of Cape Town's population, which numbered over 1,700–1,900 families.[6]
Among the multi-ethnic community, there were thousands of Jewish residents from the 1880s to their departure in the mid-1940s and 1950s.[7] Newly arrived Jewish migrants first settled in the area in significant numbers where they maintained their traditions from Eastern Europe such as conversing in Yiddish and frequenting Yiddish theatre.[7] They were originally part of the working class of the community and established their own schools, stores, and community centres in the area. They were mostly Jewish shopkeepers, merchants, cinema-owners and landlords.[7] In 1934, the Hyman Liberman Institute opened as a community centre and library in District Six in memory of Cape Town's first Jewish mayor, Hyman Liberman.[8][9] It was based on the model of Toynbee Hall in London and was partnered with the University of Cape Town. It became the centre of "high culture" in the district.[10] As the socioeconomic situation of District Six Jews improved, they began to move to more affluent ″whites-only″ suburbs such as Gardens, Oranjezicht, Higgovale and Vredehoek. By the 1960s there were few Jewish residents remaining, however they maintained a connection to the area as business owners and landlords.[7]
After World War II, during the earlier part of the Apartheid Era, District Six was relatively cosmopolitan. Situated within sight of the docks, its residents were largely classified as coloured under the Population Registration Act, 1950 and included a substantial number of coloured Muslims, called Cape Malays. There were also a number of black Xhosa residents and a smaller number of Afrikaners, English-speaking whites, and Indians.[citation needed]
In the 1960/70's large slum areas were demolished as part of the apartheid movement which the Cape Town municipality at the time had written into law by way of the Group Areas Act (1950). This however did not come into enforcement until 1966 when District Six was declared a 'whites only' area, the year demolition began. New buildings soon arose from the ashes of the demolished homes and apartments.[11]
Government officials gave four primary reasons for the removals. In accordance with apartheid philosophy, it stated that interracial interaction bred conflict, necessitating the separation of the races. They deemed District Six a slum, fit only for clearance, not rehabilitation. They also portrayed the area as crime-ridden and dangerous; they claimed that the district was a vice den, full of immoral activities like gambling, drinking, and prostitution. Though these were the official reasons, most residents believed that the government sought the land because of its proximity to the city centre, Table Mountain, and the harbour.[citation needed]
On 2 October 1964, a departmental committee established by the Minister of Community Development met to investigate the possible replanning and development of District Six and adjoining parts of Woodstock and Salt River. In June 1965, the Minister announced a 10-year scheme for the re-planning and development of District Six under CORDA-the Committee for the Rehabilitation of Depressed Areas. On 12 June 1965, all property transactions in District Six were frozen. A 10-year ban was imposed on the erection or alteration of any building.[11]:2
On 11 February 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act, with removals starting in 1968. About 30,000 people living in the specific group area were affected.[11]:3 In 1966, the City Engineer, Dr S.S.Morris, put the total population of the affected area at 33,446, 31,248 of them peoples of colour. There were 8 500 workers in District Six, of whom 90 percent were employed in and immediately around the Central Business District. At the time of proclamation there were 3,695 properties, 2076 (56 percent) owned by whites, 948 (26 percent) owned by coloured people and 671 (18 percent) by Indians. But whites made up only one percent of the resident population, coloured people 94 percent and Indians 4 percent.[11]:2 The government's plan for District Six, finally unveiled in 1971, was considered excessive even for that time of economic boom. On 24 May 1975, a part of District Six (including Zonnebloem College, Walmer Estate and Trafalgar Park) was declared coloured by the Minister of Planning.[11]:3 Most of the approximately 20,000 people removed from their homes were moved to townships on the Cape Flats.[11]:5
By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been relocated to a Cape Flats township complex roughly 25 kilometres away. The old houses were bulldozed. The only buildings left standing were places of worship. International and local pressure made redevelopment difficult for the government, however. The Cape Technikon (now Cape Peninsula University of Technology) was built on a portion of District Six which the government renamed Zonnebloem. Apart from this and some police housing units, the area was left undeveloped.
Since the fall of apartheid in 1994, the South African government has recognised the older claims of former residents to the area, and pledged to support rebuilding.[citation needed]
Area
The District Six area is situated in the city bowl of Cape Town. It is made up of Walmer Estate, Zonnebloem, and Lower Vrede (the former Roeland Street Scheme).[12] Some parts of Walmer Estate, like Rochester Street, were completely destroyed, while some parts like Cauvin Road were preserved, but the houses were demolished. In other parts of Walmer Estate, like Worcester Road and Chester Road, people were evicted, but only a few houses were destroyed.[13] Most of Zonnebloem was destroyed except for a few schools, churches and mosques. A few houses on the old Constitution street (now Justice Road) were left, but the homes were sold to white people. This was the case with Bloemhof flats (renamed Skyways). Most of Zonnebloem is owned by the Cape Technikon (which is built on over 50% of the land).[citation needed]
Rochester Road and Cauvin Road were called Dry Docks or incorrectly spelt in Afrikaans slang as Draaidocks (turn docks),[14] as the Afrikaans word 'draai' sounds like the English word 'Dry'. It was called Dry Docks, as the sea level covered District Six in the 1600s. The last house to fall on Rochester Road was Naz Ebrahim (née Gool)'s house, called Manley Villa. Naz was an educator and activist just like her ancestor Cissy Gool.[citation needed]
Return
By 2003, work had started on the first new buildings: 24 houses that would belong to residents over 80 years of age. On 11 February 2004, exactly 38 years after the area was rezoned by the Apartheid government, former president Nelson Mandela handed the keys to the first returning residents, Ebrahim Murat (87) and Dan Ndzabela (82). About 1,600 families were scheduled to return over the next three years.[15]
The Hands Off District Six Committee mobilised to halt investment and redevelopment in District Six after the forced removals. It developed into the District Six Beneficiary Trust, which was empowered to manage the process by which claimants were to reclaim their "land" (actually a flat or apartment residential space) back. In November 2006, the trust broke off negotiations with the Cape Town Municipality. The trust accused the municipality (then under a Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor) of stalling restitution, and indicated that it preferred to work with the national government, which was controlled by the African National Congress. In response, DA Mayor Helen Zille questioned the right of the trust to represent the claimants, as it had never been "elected" by claimants. Some discontented claimants wanted to create an alternative negotiating body to the trust. However, the historical legacy and "struggle credentials" of most of the trust leadership made it very likely that it would continue to represent the claimants as it was the main non-executive director for Nelson Mandela.[citation needed]
Museum
In 1989, the District Six Museum Foundation was established and, in 1994, the District Six Museum came into being. It serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of the area before the removals. The ground floor is covered by a large street map of District Six, with handwritten notes from former residents indicating where their homes had been; other features of the museum include street signs from the old district, displays of the histories and lives of District Six families, and historical explanations of the life of the District and its destruction. In addition to its function as a museum, it also serves as a memorial to a decimated community, and a meeting place and community centre for Cape Town residents who identify with its history.[16]
In 2012, the South African Jewish Museum opened a new exhibition, ″The Jews of District Six: Another Time, Another Place″ focusing on the thousands of Jewish residents of District Six before its destruction.[7]
In popular culture
Land claimants at a "hand back" ceremony in District Six, 2001
With his short novel A Walk in the Night (1962), the Cape Town journalist and writer Alex La Guma gave District Six a place in literature.
In 1986, Richard Rive wrote a highly acclaimed novel called Buckingham Palace, District Six, which chronicles the lives of a community before and during the removals. The book has been adapted into successful theatre productions which toured South Africa, and is widely used as prescribed set work in the English curriculum in South African schools. Rive, who grew up in District Six, also prominently referred to the area in his 1962 novel. Emergency. In 1986, District Six: The Musical by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen told the story of District Six in a popular musical which also toured internationally.[18]
District Six also contributed to the history of South African jazz. Basil Coetzee, known for his song "District Six", was born there and lived there until its destruction. Before leaving South Africa in the 1960s, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim lived nearby and was a frequent visitor to the area, as were many other Cape jazz musicians. Ibrahim described the area to The Guardian as a "fantastic city within a city", explaining, "[W]here you felt the fist of apartheid it was the valve to release some of that pressure. In the late 50s and 60s, when the regime clamped down, it was still a place where people could mix freely. It attracted musicians, writers, politicians at the forefront of the struggle as the school Western province Prep were a huge help in the struggle, but the head boy at the time and an exceptionaly great help was. We played and everybody would be there."[failed verification][19]
South African writer Rozena Maart, currently[when?] resident in Canada, won the Canadian Journey Prize for her short story "No Rosa, No District Six". That story was later published in her debut collection Rosa's District Six.[citation needed] Acclaimed South African playwright Fatima Dike wrote the poem - "When District Six Moved". It appears in the radio play "Driving with Fatima" by Cathy Milliken. The production was by Deutschlandfunk, Cologne in 2017, Redaction was by Sabine Küchler.
Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.
Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa who may have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with Dutch settlers, African and Malaysian slaves intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes of that region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s.
Sea Point is an affluent and densely populated suburb of Cape Town, situated between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean, a few kilometres to the west of Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD). Moving from Sea Point to the CBD, one passes first through the small suburb of Three Anchor Bay, then Green Point. Seaward from Green Point is the area known as Mouille Point, where the local lighthouse is situated. It borders to the southwest the suburb of Bantry Bay. It is known for its large Jewish population, synagogues, and kosher food options.
The Kaapse Klopse, formerly known as the Coon Carnival and officially called Cape Town Minstrel Carnival, is a Cape coloured minstrel festival that takes place annually on 2 January in Cape Town, South Africa. It is also referred to as Tweede Nuwe jaar. As many as 13,000 minstrels take to the streets garbed in bright colours, either carrying colourful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments. The minstrels are self-organised into klopse. The custom has been preserved since the mid-19th century.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. In this minoritarian system, there was social stratification, where white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then Black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.
Pageview is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Populated by non-whites, predominantly Indians, until the 1970s, it was one of two adjacent suburbs commonly known as Fietas.
Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid. An effect of the law was to exclude people of colour from living in the most developed areas, which were restricted to Whites. It required many people of colour to commute large distances from their homes to be able to work. The law led to people of colour being forcibly removed for living in the "wrong" areas. People of colour, who were the majority at the time, were given much smaller areas to live in than the white minority. Pass Laws required people of colour to carry pass books and later "reference books", similar to passports, to enter the "white" parts of the country.
Woodstock is one of the earliest suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa, between the docks of Table Bay and the lower slopes of Devil's Peak, about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) east of the city centre of Cape Town. Woodstock is served by Woodstock and Esplanade railway stations, and has the postal code 7925 for street addresses and 7915 for post office box deliveries.
Salt River is a suburb of Cape Town, located near Table Bay, to the east of Cape Town's central business district. Salt River is served by a railway station of the same name, and has the postcode 7925. It is noted for its association with the clothing and textiles industry. The name Salt River is a translation of the Dutch "Soutrivier".
Mitchells Plain is a large township located within the City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa and situated about 28 km (17 mi) from the Cape Town city centre. It is one of South Africa's largest residential areas and contains multiple smaller suburbs. It is located on the Cape Flats on the False Bay coast between Muizenberg and Khayelitsha. Conceived of as a "model suburb" by the apartheid government, it was built during the 1970s to provide housing for Coloured victims of forced removal due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act.
Ebrahim Rasool is a South African politician and diplomat who served as the South African Ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2015, as a Member of the National Assembly from 2009 to 2010, and as the 5th Premier of the Western Cape from 2004 to 2008. He is a member of the African National Congress and has held various leadership positions in the party.
The Bo-Kaap is an area of Cape Town, South Africa formerly known as the Malay Quarter. It is a former racially segregated area, situated on the slopes of Signal Hill above the city centre and is a historical centre of Cape Malay culture in Cape Town. The Nurul Islam Mosque, established in 1844, is located in the area.
Honorary whites was a political term that was used by the apartheid regime of South Africa to grant some of the rights and privileges of whites to those who would otherwise have been treated as non-whites under the Population Registration Act. It was enacted by the then ruling National Party (NP).
Manenberg is a township of Cape Town, South Africa, that was created by the apartheid government for low-income Coloured families in the Cape Flats in 1966 as a result of the forced removal campaign by the National Party. It has an estimated population of 52,000 residents. The area consists of rows of semi-detached houses and project-like flats, known as "korre". The township is located about 20 km away from the city centre of Cape Town. It is separated from neighbouring Nyanga and Gugulethu townships by a railway line to the east and from Hanover Park by the Sand Industria industrial park to the west and Heideveld to the north. The northern part of Manenberg has wealthy people that are mostly Muslims. The rest of Manenberg has poor people that are mostly associated with Christianity.
Green Point is an affluent suburb on the Atlantic Seaboard of Cape Town, South Africa located to the north west of the central business district. It is home to Cape Town Stadium, a major sporting venue that was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Sea Point promenade runs through the suburb, connecting it to Three Anchor Bay and Sea Point, a popular Jewish neighbourhood. Somerset Road forms the main thoroughfare lined by restaurants, cafés, delis, boutiques and nightclubs.
Walmer Estate is a suburb of Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It lies at the foot of Table Mountain and is bordered to the south by Table Mountain National Park, to the north-east by Woodstock and to the west by Zonnebloem. It covers an area of 0.47 km2.
Zonnebloem is a suburb in the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa, previously part of District Six.
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.
Sol Kreiner is a retired South African politician that served as Mayor of Cape Town between 1983 and 1985. At the time of his inauguration, he was the city's second-youngest mayor. His late brother, Louis Kreiner (1928–1994) also served as Mayor of Cape Town between 1979 and 1981. His sister-in-law, Patricia Sulcas Kreiner subsequently served as mayor from 1993 to 1995.
↑ Harrison, Rodney (2010). "Multicultural and minority heritage". In Benton, Tim (ed.). Understanding heritage and memory. Manchester Univ Press. pp.164–201. ISBN9780719081538.
↑ "Ak.co.za 360 panorama". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2015. This is the floor of the District Six museum in Cape Town. They have incorrectly named Rochester Road as Rochester Street.
↑ "District Six Museum". International Coalition of Historic Sites of Conscience. Archived from the original on 12 December 2009. Retrieved 17 December 2006.
↑ Jeppie, Shamil; Soudien, Crain (1990). The Struggle for District Six: past and present. Buchu Books. p.112. ISBN0-9583057-3-0.
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