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District Six is the name of a former neighborhood of Cape Town, best known for the forced removal of its inhabitants during the 1970s. It was a lively community made up of freed slaves, artisans, merchants and other immigrants, as well as many Malay people brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company. During the earlier part of the apartheid era, District Six was a multicultural district, with coloureds, a Cape Malay community, as well as other black, white and Asian people of various backgrounds. The removals were motivated by the district's beautiful views of the ocean and of Cape Town and its proximity to the city bowl. On 11 February 1966, the apartheid-era government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act, with removals starting in 1968. By 1982, more than 60 000 people had been relocated to the Cape Flats about 25 km away and the old houses were bulldozed. The area was renamed Zonnebloem and the Cape Technikon was built, but apart from this the area was left as a wasteland. In 1994 the District Six Museum was opened. It serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of the District Six before the removals. |
