Search This Blog

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Forced Out

From Atlas Obscura -

District Six Museum
An excellent and sobering account of the vibrant multicultural neighborhood destroyed under apartheid.

District Six, or “Distrik Ses” in Afrikaans, was a bohemian, mixed neighborhood in every sense of the word. It was crowded with a multiracial blend of working class people, Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike, many of whom were descended from freed slaves and immigrants. In the mid–20th century, a population of roughly 60,000 lived there. Unfortunately, District Six was also at the epicenter of apartheid in Cape Town, and still bears its scars.

During the apartheid regime of the 1960s and ’70s, the segregating Group Areas Act saw all the non-white residents of District Six evicted and relocated further outside the city. It was called “slum clearing,” but the true intention was to fill the desirably located neighborhood with white residents and high rises.

Side note - I saw this are when I visited Cape Town five years ago.  The history is a sad one.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/district-six-museum

No comments:

Post a Comment