Many films have been made, books written and stories told about South Africa’s oppressive past, but nothing captures those dark years better than the Apartheid Museum, located in western Johannesburg. The museum exhibits unedited and uncensored audio-visual material and photographs documenting some of the most harrowing episodes in South Africa’s history.
The policy of apartheid was introduced by the National Party in 1948 as a form of domination and control of black people through racial segregation. Black people were subject to inhumane treatment, their movement was curtailed and they needed permission to travel to certain parts of the country.
The Apartheid Museum takes visitors on an emotion-filled journey through those times. Film footage, photographs, text panels and artefacts in 22 individual exhibition areas bear witness to oppression. The exhibits include visuals of daily life in South Africa’s townships – under the watchful eye of security police in armoured Casspir vehicles – as well as of forced removals and innocent people being mauled by police dogs.
In other rooms, the sounds of toyi-toying and struggle songs reverberate, and visuals document the almost daily protests by the restless masses. Marches were brutally suppressed – as on 16 June 1976 in Soweto, when police opened fire on defenceless schoolchildren protesting the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools.
The museum also features footage of former president Nelson Mandela’s interview with the BBC while in hiding from the authorities in 1961, as well as of apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd justifying racial segregation.
A tour of the museum is sure to leave visitors wondering how South Africa has managed to put behind it the injustices of the past and build a society based on dignity and equality.
Conference facilities are available at the museum, and various events, from workshops to formal dinners, have been hosted at the venue.
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