Traveling with the Greensides / South Africa 2014: Apartheid Museum / April 24

I have to admit I have never really been one to keep up on world news and politics. I guess I should be ashamed to say that if it did not affect me personally I didn't pay much attention. I will tell you the 2 things I knew about Apartheid. 1 - It is a bad thing. And 2 - President Carter's daughter was arrested protesting Apartheid in 1986 when she was a college student. I know that because it was on the night time TV news. Now I know a little more. Apartheid means total segregation between blacks and whites. The White South African people voted for this in 1948. They gave everyone an ID card that stated which color you were. Then they moved all the black people out from the towns into what they called townships. Not unlike reservations that our American Natives were placed on. Their property was confiscated & they had nothing. For many years the country was in constant struggle. April 27th is the 20th Anniversary of the vote that ended Apartheid. Coincidentally Donald and I are also celebrating our 41st Anniversary on April 27th. I use the term celebrate loosely. :p OK... that's beside the point. You can see that all the school children that are here to visit the Apartheid museum are black. If you remember the picture at the Voortrekkers they were all white students. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

When we got our tickets to go into the museum some said 'you are white' on it and others said 'you are non white'. This took us through 2 different doors just like it would have then depending on your ID card. It was very interesting to see all the information about their struggles through this time period.

Some people didn't even get ID cards for who they really were.

It's amazing to me that this was happening in 1985.

I know many people have debated this but scientifically it has been proven that everyones DNA leads back to 2 tribes here.

The release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison led to the final negotiations for peace. These are the many names of Nelson Mandela.

We were not supposed to take pictures in the museum but here are a few that we snapped when no one was looking. It was quite an eye opener of how sheltered a life I have led.

This tank like vehicle was called a Casspir. The government fired guns from it at black people that were in places where they were not allowed. Dawn's nanny, Grace remembers when she was about 14 with her little brother on her back she was shot at. They called it Mello Yellow.