Not Your Typical Museums

The location of District Six is clearly visible

The past two days I have gone to two different museums in Cape Town. They weren’t like the often times boring art museums your parents used to drag you to, or even the cool science ones you went on field trips to. No, these two were much heavier topics. Like oppression. And death.

The first was the District Six museum. To give a background on District Six, under apartheid South Africa faced a lot of similar discrimination as the United States did. The city of Cape Town was divided into different districts, and under the Group Areas Act it was declared a “white” area and all of the people of color were forcibly removed. Their homes were bulldozed so they had nothing to come back to. Still to this day the majority is undeveloped, leaving an obvious vacant area amongst the commotion of the city. It, along with the museum, remains testaments to the atrocities committed to the thousands of people who lived there. My favorite part of the museum was the voices of people who lived in District Six, written along long pieces of cloth. None of them were negative; they all talked of the happiness of life when they lived there. Given everything, I think that is a very powerful message.

"We had a happy life in District Six"

The second museum we visited was on the slavery Cape Town experienced at the hands of European settlers. Upon arriving, the settlers were told not to use the local population as slaves, so a slave trade developed, again similar to the one the United States experienced. The building in which the museum is housed was once a home to thousands of slaves. Our tour guide described it as a “fortress of human misery.” We stood in the tiny room where the slaves slept, where they died. We walked in the court yard where they did their work. It was a very humbling experience.

These museums were heavy. They hit you in the gut, and instead of helping you back up they kept coming at you. I think it is good for everyone to get the wind knocked out of them every once in awhile, it makes them appreciate breathing that much more. These two museums did exactly that for me.