Apartheid Museum (June 20, 2010)

So, Jake (Our friend from the airport…we found him hanging out at UofJ), my cousin and I took a trip to the Apartheid Museum on Sunday. It was one of the few touristy sites, we were highly recommended to visit and I could imagine why. The museum is powerful to say the least.

When you get your ticket to the museum, there is a person sitting at the ticket office that gives you one of two cards, a “Blankes” (Whites) or a “Nie-Blankes” (Non-Whites).
You start the tour of the museum at the respective entrance based on your specific classification, which is designed to give the people perspective of how people were being classified when they first came to South Africa and there were either picture boards or statistics that explained the differences of being a Blanke and a Nie-Blanke.
You weren’t allowed to take pictures, but once I saw that a few people were doing it, I took a couple as well. This board summed up some of the information as best as possible…


The whole concept of Apartheid was to simply segregate everyone. And people were classified as White or Non-White. So if you were Chinese, Indian, it didn’t matter because you were going to be classified as White or Non-White.

This Apartheid Era of South African history is closely analogous to the American Civil Rights movement, except, I believe it was MUCH worse in South Africa. It was an educational experience…sad, but very informative. It walked you through the progression of Apartheid and the role Nelson Mandela played in rebuilding the country to what it is today.

I would recommend visiting this museum if you’re ever in South Africa.