Cape Town - It was 50 years ago today that the apartheid government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act and stated that people would be forcibly removed from their homes and banished to the Cape Flats.
Among the reasons given were that the area was a slum, crime-ridden and dangerous and full of immoral activities such as gambling, drinking and prostitution.
The process took more than 15 years to complete, but by 1982 about 60 000 people had been moved.
Read: 'Our District Six dream is fading'
Among them were people who went on to make their mark on the world stage, including politicians, academics, musicians, sport stars and singers.
Most of them never forgot where they came from and still feel an emotional attachment to the area.
Top hip hop DJ Ready D recalls the energy and vibe and strong sense of community in District Six. Born Deon Daniels, he and his family lived at 73 and 75 Upper Shepherd Street.
“For young people it was an awesome place to grow up.”
He recalls playing street games as a child.
“We lived on a slope and we had these hard boards we would rub with candle wax or Sunlight soap to make them go faster.”
But he said it was music that was at the heart of District Six.
Ready D, who has performed all over the world, said you couldn’t walk past a house without hearing music.
“The build-up to New Year was the best. The Cape Malay choirs had these practice rooms and you’d hear them playing.”
He also has childhood memories of his father strumming his guitar.
“District Six was the inspiration and catalyst for my love of music.”
They were among the last families to leave when the bulldozers came and he still recalls seeing the “darkness unfolding”.
“We had to collect whatever we could, but the house in Mitchells Plain was too small to fit everything in.”
He said it saddens him that restitution has taken so long.
“I used to go with my mom to the meetings. She still attends.”
But he finds it demoralising and says the lack of action created conspiracy theories in his head.
“Are they waiting for this generation to die out?”
Another big name out of District Six was legendary jazz musician Abdullah Ibrahim, who attended Trafalgar High School.
After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and harassment of musicians by the authorities, he spent many years in exile.
In an interview with the The Guardian some years back, he said music had proved a lifeline in District Six.
“We grew up drinking alcohol and smoking pot and I lost a lot of close friends to gangs and prison. They died of addiction or were murdered. The thing that saved me was the music. In all that horror it was at least clean; you were dealing with something beautiful,” he was quoted as saying.
Another musician who made it big internationally was Mervyn Africa, who learned to play the piano at the age of five at the Holy Cross School in District Six. He left South Africa in 1981 to live and perform, working with fellow exiles such as trumpeter Hugh Masekela Trevor Jones, who was born in District Six, became a world-renowned orchestral music composer.
He composed scores for films such as Labyrinth, Brassed Off, The Last of the Mohicans, Cliffhanger and Notting Hill and worked with people such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, David Bowie and Elvis Costello.
Former minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel also attended school in the district, matriculating from Harold Cressy High.
Lionel Davis, who was born in District Six, made his mark as an artist. He was a political prisoner on Robben Island for seven years and later joined the Cape Arts Project.
Then there were famous singers such as May Abrahamse, who started singing at 14, and sang leading soprano roles in la Traviata, la bohème and Madama Butterfly.
Some of the great names have died, such as Alex la Guma and Cissie Gool.
La Guma, a novelist and an activist in the liberation Struggle, was born in District Six and attended Trafalgar High.
Gool was an anti-apartheid political and civil rights leader known as the Jewel of District Six for her work with the poor. She died in 1963.
*A commemoration will take place on Thursday, starting at the District Six Homecoming Centre at 11am and ending at the Moravian Church at 3pm.
Cape Argus