“I have never been up this road”, Sue said on our way home. With that I made a quick right turn into New Brighton. We were driving into the area we were photographing from the salt pans. A few hundred metres forward we saw the sign pointing to the Red Location Museum. Another turn to the right and we were on our way to a museum we have wanted to visit for some time.
The Red Location was established in 1905, when the black residents of the Strangers Location and at
Coopers Kloof (Albany Road) were moved from Port Elizabeth. These areas were in the vicinity of where we now live,
These removals were orchestrated by the British Colonial government of the time. The National Party, the architect of apartheid policies, was only formed in 1914 and came into power in 1948 after which it was responsible for untold misery, injustices and crimes against humanity.
The name of the Red Location comes from the corrugated iron barracks, brought down here from a defunct concentration camp at Uitenhage and the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at de Aar; that had been used in the South African War of 1899-1902. In time, these sheds eventually rusted and turned deep red.
Some of the original houses at the Red Location
The Red Location Museum focuses on institutionalized racism and the anti-apartheid movement. It is an awesome museum with some very graphic displays.
The main hall with columns featuring the heroes of the struggle
The tribute to Vuyisile Mini, an ANC activist and the black and white photographs commemorating the Langa Massacre in 1985 are a chilling reminder of how a nation can become divided through unjust policies and beliefs and generate so much hatred
Tribute to Vuyisile Mini who was executed in 1964. Against the walls are replicas of inquest
filing boxes with the names of many who died violent deaths, where no blame was attributed.
What is striking about the museum is that it was developed in the midst of the slum area. The old and the new mingling together.
New housing developed along side the museum.
I was brought up as a child of apartheid, with a racist father. As a result I was a bigoted little racist at an early age, but as a young adult started to question those values. In the 1980’s my wife and I were members of the old Progressive Party and took our stand against the system. However, when we left the museum I could not shake the feeling that there was more that I could have done at the time. My stand then was from the position of privilege and I was largely sheltered from the reality what was happening in the townships.
Shacks alonside the Museum.
Even now, 14 years after our first democratic elections living conditions for some have not changed.
Yes, this is someone's home near the museum.
