District Six Museum commemorates 54th remembrance walk

Visitors to the District Six Museum read about the events that played out on February 11 1966. Picture: Henk Kruger/ANA

The District Six Museum will host its 54th annual remembrance walk on Tuesday February 11, from 11am.

The event will start at the District Six Homecoming Centre in Buitenkant Street.

The walk of remembrance marks the day that District Six was declared a white area by the apartheid government in 1966.

Each year, the District Six Museum leads a ritual procession to the memorial cairn situated on the last remaining piece of Hanover Street.

This cairn has been the focus of ongoing memorialisation rituals by the District Six community since the 1990s.

This year’s commemoration celebrates the official renaming of Zonnebloem to District Six by the Western Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee, a campaign which was spearheaded by the museum in 2019.

The programme will include a procession to the memorial cairn and the delivery of a People’s Declaration to declare District Six a National Heritage Site at the South African Heritage Resources Agency in Harrington Street.

Take a stone from your community to lay on the cairn if you wish. To RSVP and for more information, contact Chantal de Lilie at 021 466 7200 or reception@districtsix.co.za