District 6

a poem inspired by a visit to the District Six Museum in Cape Town

Picture this. District Six.
Mixed. Not picked.

Living, thinking. Instinct.
Linked. Distinct.

Nineteen sixty six.
History’s fist.

Strict white list.
Sixty thousand evicted.

Kicked out. Brick by brick.
No carrot, all stick.

Victor’s restriction.
Victims’ conviction.

District Six. Missed.
Museum’ed memories. Still not fixed.

District Six is an area of Cape Town, South Africa, that had a population that was racially mixed until the Apartheid government decreed in 1966 that District 6 become whites-only. Sixty thousand black and coloured residents were evicted and their houses demolished.