Black families are returning to Simon’s Town in South Africa following their removal from the town nearly 60 years ago.
About 1,500 residents were forcibly removed from the Luyolo area of Simon’s Town in 1966 by the apartheid Group Areas Act.
Racial segregation was widely accepted in South Africa and sanctioned by law in 1948 after the National Party headed by led by Daniel F. Malan, extended segregation sanctions, codifying the system as apartheid.
The Population Registration Act of 1950 further segregated people by race when it categorized all South Africans as either Bantu, which meant all-Black, and Coloured, which meant mixed-race Africans. The Group Areas Act of 1950 divided Black people and white people into residential areas, with the white areas given the best agricultural, industrial, and urban areas. Prior to the Group Act, people of all races lived in Simon’s Town.
The Simon’s Town residents lost their homes and were relocated to Gugulethu because Black people were restricted from renting or even occupying any property in “white zones” following the Group Areas Act.
About 20 families were forcibly moved every day by trucks loaded with as much of their belongings as would fit. One of those residents was then-18-year-old Broadhurst Cona, who said they weren’t even told where they were being relocated to.
“It was the end of the world for us,” said Cona. “We never even knew where we were going.”
The residents were resettled and given no choice of the size of their flats or homes. If they refused, they were left to find housing on their own.
Nearly 60 years later, at least 100 claimants from the Luyolo Land Restitution Committee are returning to Simon’s Town as beneficiaries of the Dido Valley Housing Project.
The housing project consists of 600 units, 100 of which will go to claimants of the Luyolo Land Restitution Committee. About 773 Luyolo township claimants were offered…
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