The Malay Camp in Kimberley,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, was a cosmopolitan suburb which was subject to forced removals prior to the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of u ...

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History

Malay Camp had a history similar to Cape Town's

District Six District Six (Afrikaans ''Distrik Ses'') is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were History of South Africa in the Apartheid era#Forced removal, forcibly removed during the 1970s ...

, Johannesburg's

Sophiatown Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians a ...

and Port Elizabeth's South End. It was a cosmopolitan suburb originating in the early days of Kimberley's existence but subject to forced

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

after the owner of the land ( De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd) donated the area to the

Kimberley Municipality Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia * Kimberley (Western Australia) ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley * Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania * Kimberley, Tasmania a small town * County of Kimberley, ...

in 1939. Most of the houses, churches, mosques, shops and other buildings were demolished, making way for Kimberley's Civic Centre. This occurred from the 1940s, prior to the better known

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

forced removals consequent on the

, making Kimberley's Malay Camp clearance unique.

Prominent residents

Solomon T. Plaatje, noted author, journalist and first General Secretary of the African Native National Congress, was a resident of Malay Camp. His later dwelling at 32 Angel Street is preserved as the

Sol Plaatje Museum The Sol Plaatje Museum and Library is in Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, in a house where Solomon T. Plaatje lived during his last years at 32 Angel Street, Malay Camp. It was here that Plaatje wrote ''Mhudi ''Mhudi: An Epic of South ...

Malay Camp History Projects

* Moosa Aysen's booklets on ''Islam on the Diamond Fields''. * Historical Society of Kimberley and the Northern Cape, 1998 - to collect social and living history. *

McGregor Museum The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907. Overview Housed at first in a purpos ...

Malay Camp Exhibition, 2002 * Louis Mallett Malay Camp Social History Project, 2003 * Liz Crossley Project ''The Past is not Dead'', 2004 * Permanent display at the

, 2006,

References

Explanatory notes Citations Sources * * * * *

External links

Liz Crossley: The Past is not Dead Project
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