District 6 and apartheid museum in Cape Town

La history of south africa is inextricably linked to apartheid, terrible and incredible regime of racial segregation.

Therefore, in a sightseeing trip to south africa you cannot leave aside knowing how it was possible that the apartheid, its consequences and what remains of racial segregation.

One of the best ways to approach this topic is visit the District 6 museum en Cape.

El apartheid was repealed in 1994 before the first truly democratic elections were held in South Africa, with the full participation of the black population, which marked the arrival of Nelson Mandela to the power.

This racial segregation regime had been implemented in 1948 after elections in which the black population did not vote, which won the national party.

Apartheid in South Africa

Of the numerous stories of racial segregation that were experienced in South Africa during the 46 years of validity of the apartheid, With the Cape Town District 6 It has become an icon.

In 1867 it began to be called Distrito 6 to a neighborhood adjacent to the center of Cape, close to the old docks, and which was inhabited by a very cosmopolitan population.

Former slaves lived there, who had been “released” after the formal abolition of slavery in South Africa in 1864, but also Hindus, some white Catholics, and Malay Muslims brought in as slaves.

These now live grouped in another neighborhood of Cape Town, Bo Kaap, which has become a fashionable place frequently visited by tourists due to the great color of its houses.

In 1966, the regime of apartheid decided to declare the Distrito 6 as a white zone. The reason? It was very close to the city center, which they wanted to reserve only for the white population.

From then until the abolition of the apartheid More than 65.000 people were forced to leave their neighborhood despite the popular resistance movements that occurred.

Residents of Distrito 6 Most of them were transferred to a Township, neighborhood for blacks located in the suburbs more than 25 kilometers away from Cape.

From getting to work in the city center in just 15 minutes, those expelled began to take more than an hour and a half.

The vast majority of the houses in the neighborhood, except the churches, were demolished, although in the end the planned reconstruction plan was not implemented.

Finally, in 1994 the possibility was declared for former residents of Distrito 6 returned to their neighborhood if they could prove that they had owned some of the very small homes that existed before their demolition.

In February 2004, he himself Nelson Mandela He gave the keys to their new homes to the first residents returning to the neighborhood, all of them in their eighties.

But in practice very few people have returned, since the compensations have also been very small.

Visit District 6 museum

El District 6 museum It is located in an old Methodist church, one of the few buildings in the neighborhood that were not demolished, located in front of a Police Station.

In this small museum arranged on two floors you can walk over a large map of the configuration of the old neighborhood, in which many visitors, former residents, usually look for the location of their demolished home.

Through multiple panels and objects you will be able to get an idea of ​​how people lived in the Distrito 6,

But, above all, what the apartheid in the daily life of the black population of South Africa, with incredible things like identity cards that marked the color of their skin...and their graduation.

Certainly one essential visit in Cape Town so as not to lose the memory of apartheid in said country, in which whites and blacks now coexist, but they interact very little.

There are still great economic and cultural differences between both populations, although a new middle class is beginning to emerge among the black population.