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Remembering District Six

11 February 2016 | Story Newsroom. Photo Stan Winer.
Removed: Demolition in progress, District Six, Cape Town, circa 1974-1975. Taken during the final stage of removal of 6 000 families from District Six, for relocation to the Cape Flats and Atlantis, in terms of the Group Areas Act.
Removed: Demolition in progress, District Six, Cape Town, circa 1974-1975. Taken during the final stage of removal of 6 000 families from District Six, for relocation to the Cape Flats and Atlantis, in terms of the Group Areas Act.

On 11 February 1966, District Six, a multiracial community in the heart of the Mother City, was declared a whites-only area, opening a wound in society that has never healed. UCT Libraries Digital Collections is home to a wealth of archival material on this history.

Fifty years ago the declaration of District Six as “whites only” lead to the forced removal by the apartheid government of more than 60 000 people from the residential area.

Homes, communities and places of work and worship were pulled apart and evictees resettled across the Cape Flats.

A botched restitution process has not alleviated the pain of many who gathered at memorial sites on 11 February 2016 to remember and reflect.

Much of the history of District Six has been captured in UCT Libraries' Special Collections archives, which contain photographs, oral history, film and other materials.

The Centre for Popular Memory conducted a number of interviews between 1985 and 2002, which are now housed in UCT Libraries Digital Collections. The majority of interviewees resided or worked in District Six prior before they were removed.

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