Zwelitsha is a town in the

Eastern Cape Province The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in 199 ...

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 ...

. It forms part of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.

History

Zwelitsha was created in 1947 as corridor township to

King William's Town Qonce, formerly known as King William's Town, is a city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The city is about northwest of the Indian Ocean port of East London. Qonce, with a population of around ...

to provide labour for the Good Hope Textile Factory of the Da Gama Group, South Africa. As a vestige of the liberal United Party government it had "middle class" pretensions in terms of neat schools, clinics, shopping centers, dairy, inhouse plumbing, bathrooms and toilets. With the entrenchment of apartheid by the early 1960s Zones 6-10 were added to the original Zones 1 to 5. From 1972 to 1981 it served as the provisional capital of the

Bantustan A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now N ...

Ciskei Ciskei (, or ) was a Bantustan for the Xhosa people-located in the southeast of South Africa. It covered an area of , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian O ...

, until the capital could be moved to Alice, and then to

Bisho Bhisho (formerly Bisho) is the capital of the Eastern Cape province in South Africa. The Office of the Premier, Provincial Legislature and many other government departments are headquartered in the town. The town, three kilometres from Qonce and ...

. Also in 1972 it became the insurgent center of the

Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...

(BCM) with the Mapetla Mohapi and Mongezi Sefika wa Nkomo starting a workstudy/political circle in Zone 10 area to launch later in January 1973, the

Black People's Convention The Black People's Convention (BPC) was a national coordinating body for the Black Consciousness movement of South Africa. Envisaged as a broad-based counterpart to the South African Students' Organisation, the BPC was active in organising resis ...

(BPC), King William's Town, Branch with Zwelitsha as the HQ. BCM activists and leaders including

Steve Biko Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known ...

, Harry Ranwedzi Nengekhulu, Welile Nhlapho paid visit in early that including the launching of the National Youth Organization (NAYO) a Black Consciousness youth wing at nearby Mount Coke Hotel.

References

Populated places in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality Townships in the Eastern Cape {{EasternCape-geo-stub