Download PDFThe Workers Museum and its Cottages (WMC) are one of the few remaining heritage sites that tell the history of Johannesburg’s migrant labour system and the struggles of the working class. The WMC was once the workers’ compound for municipal workers, since 1915. Walking around the Cottages today, one can see pictures from exhibitions on the ‘Closed Construction’ Exhibition that Khanya held jointly with the City in 2006. After the declaration of the WMC as a heritage site, Khanya documented the history of all compounds and hostels where migrant workers lived in Johannesburg before many were demolished. These migrant workers worked for 11 months a year, denied rights in the City, and were not allowed to bring their wives and children to the City.
The Workers Compound also housed the Workers Library, which was established in 1986/1987 to support COSATU and the growing trade union movement. Leaders like the late Petrus Mashishi, then president of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), were deeply involved, shaping the space into a true working-class hub. The space was declared a heritage site in 2002.
The late director of Khanya College, Oupa Lehulere, was a tireless fighter for the WMC as a heritage site, and the documentation of migrant hostels, and Khanya’s history and memory work, critical to working class organising and building independent organisations.
In 2007, Khanya relocated to honour its commitment to ensure that the site remain a heritage space. “We fought for heritage and had to keep our word that this would remain a heritage space, not administrative offices,” said Maria van Driel, Khanya College Director. The Cottages were later given to MK veterans but fell into disrepair and were closed for five years and later refurbished.
In 2021, recognising Khanya’s work in the city since 1996, including its exhibitions, Winter Schools, migrant labour conferences, and cultural programmes, the City returned the use of the Cottages to Khanya College. The space became a secure and accessible base for the working people, cultural workers and the youth, close to the Museum and Newtown Park, where Khanya has continued to build a cultural movement from below.
Generations have grown up with Khanya’s programmes, from museum visits, theatre plays, music, writing and study groups reading Gold and Workers by Luli Callinicos, a classic piece on the development of migrant labour in South Africa. Many have read this book through study groups over the years, and as working class people come into Khanya, it remains one of the key texts they engage with. With modest resources, Khanya has tried, up to 2021 and beyond, to bring working-class communities to the Workers Museum, to host the Book Fair, and to ensure a consistent thread of people knowing their history and building the movement from below. The children’s talents shine so brightly that no one would guess they come from poor communities. Yet, with these successes, the City has offered little support in maintaining or securing the Museum and Cottages. Since 1996, Khanya, a small NGO, has been subsidising the City.
Today, the Workers Museum and Cottages remain one of the last cultural spaces for Johannesburg’s working class. As the City decays and public spaces disappear, defending this heritage is urgent. Young people should be able to grow up with this vision and feel they are part of something broader in a country struggling with xenophobia and identity, given that workers came here from as far as Tanzania to build this country. “It is high time we take arts, culture, and heritage into our own hands and manage this Museum ourselves,” says Maria van Driel. For Khanya, this struggle has always been for the working class, preserving memory, and building movements for social justice. Defending the Cottages is not just about saving a building, it’s about protecting a living history and a cultural home for this generation and the next.
This article was submitted as part of the August edition of the Karibu! Campaign Bulletin publication and is published bi-monthly. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the author and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
