Speaking of memorials, Cape Town’s District Six museum is one of the best and most powerful museums I have ever visited. Located on the edge of what was once the city’s bustling and integrated downtown, the museum preserves the memory of a community obliterated by “whites only” laws.
In 1966, District Six was declared a white area under the Group areas Act of 1950. 60 000 people were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as the Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers.
One of a consortium of museums calling themselves “Sites of Conscience,” District Six not only chronicles the past; part of its mission is to “create a space for dialogue around themes of diaspora, dislocation and cultural identities in Cape Town.” The mandate is to “actively engage the broader public in questions around these themes as they have arisen in the Museum’s research, archival and curatorial work… the museum encourages public discussion around critical questions relating to legacies of dispossession, oppression and redress.”