From District Six to Athlone
Part I

I was born in Searle Street, District Six in 1922.

This is how I remember District Six.
The hub of District Six was Hanover Street with it's Star Cinema, Globe Furniture Store, Fish Market, Lieberman Institute, Wash house, shops, butchers, even furthermore, the famous Seven Steps, and Lavender hill. Other places close by were The Bethel Institute, Stakesby Lewis Hostel, and the British Bioscope in Caledon Street. There was even the early morning market in Sir Lowry Road. By 1900 one could say that the part of greater Cape Town from the castle to Observatory was recognizably lower class contrast to the villas of the Southern Suburbs that had become bastions of white, English speaking bourgeois, respectively. Many of District Six's were locked in what one could say was structural poverty, living in overcrowded tenements, high mortality rates, few relieving facilities which most were unable to afford to give their children more than a basic education in reading and writing. Many were unable to afford even that. The merchants of Cape Town dubbed themselves as the clean party and the landlords the dirty party. The dirties were criticized for refusing to raise money on sanitation and water supply. The small pox epidemic of 1882 decimated large parts of Cape Town's population. The cleans gained power. They did improve sanitation and improved water supplies. Very little was done on housing, providing a park or swimming bath. They entrenched themselves by disenfranchising a large percentage of those tenants who had previously had a vote and by introducing a multiple voting system based on wealth.

Again in 1901 the Bubonic Plague hit Cape Town. The wealthy Capetonians rationalized that poverty and conditions of poverty would disappear. Urban segregation was on the move; the African Residents of District Six were forcibly removed to Ndabeni. The residents did not oppose the move and District Six at the turn of the century may have been poor but it was a vibrant place. It was one of the most cosmopolitan areas in Cape Town. There was no example of wide scale racial or ethnic antagonisms. Non-racial organisations, the General strike Workers Union and the District Six Ratepayers Association eventually succeeded in electing Morris Alexander, a Jew and a Muslim, Morris Alexander a Muslim, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman to the town council. District Six in the early 1900's been the start of the African People's Organisation (APO). It was the home of John Tobin' s stone meetings.

More on the Political Sphere of Cape Town. Saul Jayita was one of its joint secretaries of the Unity Movement. The was the Non-European united Front, The Anti Cad Movement, The All African Convention, the congress organisations, the Liberation League and Communist Party. There were Goolam Gool, Ben Kies, Isaac Tababta, Alie Fataar, Walter Parry, Willem van Schoor, Hosea Jaffe, Jane Gool, Eric Ernstzen, Sonny Abdurahman, Sam Khan, Cissy Gool, Harry Snitcher, Jimmy La Guma, John Gomas and Dr A. Abdurahman. The Stakesby Lewis house is where the New Era Fellowship was launched in 1943. In 1919 the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union was established in the halls of District Six. Stalwarts were Clements Kadalie, Jimmy La Guma and John Gomas. District Six produced writers like Alex La Guma, Richard Rive and Cosmo Pieterse who had his high school education at Trafalgar High. Amongst my District Six recollections, I remember Reverend T. Engel, a childhood mate; His roots go back to Elim, an Afrikaans religious community with very strong connections to Athlone with family names like Engel. I recall Trevor proudly pointing out the Moravian Church that stood high from our walking vantage. Trevor himself, an ordained ministering the Moravian Church added a very spiritual ambience to my memory of the Moravian Church and though I have looked hard I have come across only one shot of the Mosque still standing.