So if you want to take a walk down memory lane, especially in South Africa, then the place to be is the Apartheid Museum, which is located on Northern Parkway and Gold Reef Road, in Ormonde, Johannesburg.
Opened in 2001, the Apartheid Museum documents both in visuals and written summaries, South Africa's apartheid era from 1948 up to the historic release of Nelson Mandela who became the first black South African president after the 1994 all-race elections. Segregation was a very prominent part of the South African apartheid system. And interestingly enough, the museum still has signs for whites and non-whites entrances (something that was the norm in the dark days of apartheid South Africa), and the cards issued arbitrarily actually do emphasise, which entrance one is allowed to use to enter (and can only be permitted to enter through that door). In its own way that is a creative way of documenting that part of South African history. Right inside the museum a number of identification cards that classify the race of the cardholder are displayed. Racial classification has been documented as the foundation of all apartheid laws. On the identification cards individuals are placed under one of four groups, these being 'Native', 'Coloured', 'Asian', and 'White', and these identification documents were the main tool used to implement racial segregation policies. While the museum is rich with the history of South Africa the one that struck me as a first-time visitor, is the display on one of the most celebrated anti-apartheid heroes - Steven Bantu Biko, whose short life touched many lives and made a huge difference in freeing South Africa from the clutches of apartheid. A fairly big space is dedicated to Biko, and his life is shown both in visuals (pictures) and a few words, which describe what was happening at the time. Born on December 18, 1946, in King Williams Town, in the Eastern Cape, Biko showed a devotion to anti-apartheid politics at a very early age, and the exhibit takes you through his life as a student to the time he met his death in a Pretoria prison cell on September 12, 1977.
