"Nie-Blankes, Non-whites"

Today we visited the Apartheid Museum. 

As I rolled out of bed this morning and headed down for breakfast, I never once thought about the freedom I have to study whatever I want, wear what I want, sit by who I want to sit next to, or even eat whatever I feel like eating. 

The Apartheid Museum was, hands down, the best museum I have ever been to. We spent about 2 and a half hours in it, and I know I could’ve easily spent at least 2 more journeying through the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa. 

I entered the museum as a “non-white,” and first saw how someone of color during apartheid would have been treated. 

Apartheid allowed legal segregation between blacks and whites in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. It is shocking to think about it ending only less than two decades ago. 

Apartheid hardened into its most racist form during the 1960s. Ernest Cole was a documentary photographer during this time, producing astonishing photos of what it was like to be black in Verwoerd’s white republic. Cole’s photos were published in his book House of Bondage, which was banned in apartheid South Africa. Now Cole’s work is publicly displayed in the museum.

Cole’s photos and writings really got to me. It is really a feeling that can’t be explained - seeing photos of people so vulnerable to sicknesses and diseases and just downright treated like crap. The unbelievable visions I would get when reading about apartheid became even more real and disturbing while I looked at Cole’s work. He didn’t hold back, he just showed the truth. The black majority was tortured by the white minority of South Africa, for no real reason than the color of their skin. 

The museum had an area that showed what was going on with the rest of the world, while the most devastating issues were continuing in South Africa. Although most people skipped past this area, I stayed to watch Neil Armstrong land on the moon, Martin Luther King give his famous “I have a dream” speech, and much more. It makes me wonder what I would have done back then. I wonder if people in the states really knew what was going on in South Africa at the time? Why didn’t anyone help? Why did apartheid last 46 long, dark years - while everyone else just continued on?

One part of the museum gave visitors the opportunity to walk into a detention cell, illustrating the size and layout of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, or the one where Stephen Biko died in. Honestly, I was really freaked out at first to go inside. I walked around for a few minutes, tried to go inside again, but couldn’t do it. Finally the third time around, I went in. 

Immense feelings of claustrophobia set in after just a few seconds, but after taking a deep breath, I imagined what it would be like to be confined in such a space for a long period of time. Tears filled my eyes, as they do while I write this, and I walked out - not feeling scared - but liberated. 

The Apartheid Museum is one of those places where you really have to immerse yourself within each reading, each photo, and each video to get the full effect. 

As the museum’s brochure says, “Apartheid is exactly where it belongs - in a museum.”