Durban Deconstructed – Two Durban Museums you should visit

Where do you go if you want to find out more about the history of Durban? Not the Durban that was settled by the English or the history that is well documented. No, I wanted to learn about the history that was swept under the rug. I wanted to hear the other perspectives and open my mind.

 

Usually you would go to ground zero, where the action took place and speak to the survivors. In this case it is Cato Manor. But the Cato Manor I wanted to learn about doesn’t exist anymore. More than 60 years ago the inhabitants were forcibly removed, relocated and much history was destroyed along with many lives. Fortunately two Durban museums have managed to preserve some artifacts, photos and historical documents to make the history come alive.

 

Kwa Muhle Museum

 

To understand this journey, we need to visit the Kwa Muhle museum first. Back in the day, this building represented everything to the African worker of the control and lack of freedom that they experienced daily. The African Affairs Department of the Durban Corporation. People came here from their rural homes, seeking work, only to be turned around and told to return home within 3 days because that is all that their pass allowed.

 

 

 

The first of these two Durban museums opens up a world of understanding, explaining the deflation people must have felt with the laws imposed on them. Pictures of passes, the progress of the building of segregated living areas such as Kwamashu and Umlazi, stories of the riots in Cato Manor and reflections of the control that beer halls created. I saw examples of the bottles used to hold illegal liquor and photographs of empty eyes during the forced removals. It is possible to feel the sadness through these silent witnesses.

 

 

 

There are 2 additional separate exhibitions, one on HIV/AIDS and another about the controversy surrounding the renaming of a school in Amazimtoti after Zondi. The man who received the death penalty after detonating a bomb in the Sanlam centre in the 1980’s killing 5 people, in the name of the war on the Apartheid government. This is the raw difficulty of the truth as seen from both perspectives. One a victim of his circumstances, the lives lost, the victims of his actions in protest to his oppressive circumstances. Right or wrong, both were painful to different people.

 

 

Well worth a visit.

 

Cato Manor Heritage Centre

 

After reading about the riots in Cato Manor, I wanted to learn more and found my way to the second Durban museum on my list. Namely, the Cato Manor Heritage Centre. In a series of plaques and old black and white photographs, the story unravels and reveals a jagged past to this area. It started as Indian workers renting land here and growing vegetables. With the influx of African people from the rural areas and no space for them to live, the farmers built shacks and rented these out for a more lucrative income.

 

 

These Indian landlords were eventually displaced after a riot broke out and Cato Manor eventually became predominantly occupied by African people. It was a place where there were not as restrictive rules as in the other designated areas and women made an income by the brewing and selling of sorghum beer to the workers.

 

 

Many logical reasons were used to eventually remove the people from Cato Manor, but it was probably more the lack of control that the government had over the area and the people, that made the removal urgent.

 

 

Sadly there is very little left of the history, like district 6 it was razed to the ground and handed over to another group and new buildings have wiped out its existence. Although there isn’t a display of many artefacts, the visuals and words are enough to bring the hope and the fears of that time alive. It certainly opened my eyes.

 

As you are reading these words, a new building is being prepared for opening later this year. The Heritage Centre and all the history will be moved across to the new building (literally down the road). I trust that this will bring more visitors and reach a further audience.

 

 

This post is the first of many that I hope to Deconstruct Durban. I hope to introduce you to places and things and people around my current hometown of Durbs and make you fall in love with this city. The next post will be about what I got up to on a day tour around Inanda. So keep if you don’t want to miss it, please join the newsletter.