With society closing ranks and excluding members of the Durban Indian community from everything from sport clubs to hotels, the Surat Hindu Association was established in the early 1900s in an effort to protect the rights of Indian people. The association assisted with a variety of issues, from procuring Gujarati teachers direct from India, to religious guidance … Read more
The late Professor Mazisi Kunene will be honoured as part of the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Time of the Writer festival taking place from the 13th-18th March 2017. Kunene’s iconic book, Emperor Shaka the Great, has finally been published in its native isiZulu, and is being launched as part of this year’s festival. UNodomehlezi KaMenzi, as the book is known in Zulu, was … Read more
The 11th February 2017 is a significant date in South African history. It marks 27 years since former South African president, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison, after having spent 27 years incarcerated. Mandela was arrested on the 5th August 1962 while driving from Durban to Johannesburg. He was posing as a chauffeur, going under … Read more
Durban’s Liberation Heritage Route is part of a larger National Heritage Route which seeks to identify, and in some cases develop sites that are of particularly historical significance to South Africa. Groenkloof Nature Reserve in Pretoria is now home to the impressive National Heritage Monument, aptly entitled The Long Walk to Freedom. The Monument forms part … Read more
For those of you interested in learning more about the church’s role in Apartheid South Africa, the exhibition, Denis Hurley: The Guardian of the Light, will provide valuable information about the events of that period, and specifically the part that Denis Hurley, acting as the Archbishop of Durban, played. Often in opposition to the church, which was sometimes … Read more
The Congress of the People took place on the 26th June 1955, in Kliptown, just outside of Johannesburg. Attended by some 3000 people, the aim of the meeting was to discuss the content of the proposed Freedom Charter, with submissions for the document having been received from people all across the country. The Freedom Charter, some of the core tenets … Read more