For the second feature on the (not so) new Durban road names, we thought that we’d tackle a road that runs through the centre of our city, and is host to the famous Comrades Marathon taking place this Sunday. Berea Road, now King Dinuzulu Road, is the ‘gateway’ to Durban, with Tollgate Bridge forming a great big welcome sign! As people’s first view of Durban it seems appropriate then that this road is named after a Zulu king. King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo (1868 – 18 October 1913) was the son of King Cetshwayo kaMpande, who famously led the Zulus to victory against the British in the Battle of Isandlwana. Dinuzulu wasn’t quite as lucky though, being captured by the British and exiled to the island of St Helena for seven years for leading a Zulu army against the British. A few years later Dinuzulu was put on trial for treason and was sentenced to four years in prison. Two years later, in 1910, an old friend of his, General Louis Botha, became Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa and ordered that Dinuzulu be released and transported to the farm Uitkyk in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913.
In 2008 a statue of Dinuzulu was erected next to the statue of General Louis Botha, at the corner of King Dinuzulu Road and Julius Nyerere Avenue (Warwick Avenue) in Durban.
Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia.org.