Old pass building (Dompass)
Dompass museun in Langa
The old pass building in Langa also known as the dompass building is testimony to a terrible time when black people had to present their identity cards whenever asked. Here in this building anyone who failed to present this pass was detained and tried for breaking the pass laws.
There is a collection of photographs documenting the story showing evidence of life at this time
cnr King Langalibalele & Lerotholi Aves
Humiliating court cases
In the 1960s, a room in what is now the High Court Annexure was the scene of formal hearings of the most bizarre and humiliating kind. ordinary people came before an appeal panel to argue about which “race” they should be labeled as.
Between 1950 and 1991, apartheid’s Population Registration Act classified every South African as belonging to one of at least seven “races” and accordingly granted or denied them citizenship rights on a sliding scale from “White” (full rights) to “Bantu” (with the fewest).
Categorizing people
The classification was subjective, and families were split apart when paler or darker-skinned children or parents – or those with curlier hair, or different features – were placed in separate categories.
Race inspectors, who were always white, often very young, and always completely unqualified for this or any other job, would go around at hospitals inspecting babies. They looked at fingernails, at hair, at the shapes of noses, and they decided if a baby was white or black.
But people sometimes get misclassified. The Classification Board held investigations for that. All the relatives were called in and scrutinized, photographed, and interrogated. Friends were questioned, and neighbours were questioned. Family secrets often came out.
Courtesy Jason Patrick Hanslo Cape Town Historical Society
