Leaving New Brighton and heading to Sidwell, the Sheya Kulati Drive gives way to the M8 — to the right lies an unimpressive piece of land, often overgrown.
It is barely significant, even to those who use it as a shortcut to and from the township.
At a different time though, this “no-man’s-land” intermittently staged a running proxy war between boys who could not fully comprehended their starkly different worlds.
Armed with rocks and slings, the warring factions at times rendered the field a no-go area.
The patch of land divided the old white Sidwell suburb from New Brighton — the city’s oldest township and a hotbed of political activism in the city and province.
The battles were a microcosm of the 1960s and 1970s divide in apartheid SA.
Long before the political activism that eventually earned him two stints on Robben Island, the then-Port Elizabeth’s first black mayor, Nceba Faku, recalls how in themselves skirmishes were insignificant, but to a preteen boy they were a formative experience which gave an outlet to a fight against an arbitrary system.
“Politics just grew on you. It was just there because everyone spoke about politics in various ways but it was the same message,” Faku said.
“You experienced discrimination, not necessarily through your own ordeals because you were younger, but through the life of your parents and elders.
“You would then come to realise something is wrong but you do not philosophise about that.
For Vusi Pikoli, 65, the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority, systematic injustice reinforced his political consciousness, as police vans frequently raided the township to quell unrest.
“I was young but I still vividly remember the raids of the early 60s,” Pikoli said.
“Police vans were constantly moving around and homes were searched.
“They even confiscated axes, anything that could be perceived as a weapon,” he said.
For him, the experience of his uncle who was imprisoned at Robben Island, alerted him to the injustices of apartheid and the oppression endured by black people.
“We had to go all the way to Alice to study at the University of Fort Hare when we had a university (former PE Technikon) 10km away and Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) with Rhodes which is much closer. This was reason enough to fight for what was right.”
Pikoli said the history of New Brighton was that of people who used to live in South End but were removed to Korsten and again to townships because of racial segregation.
“New Brighton as an area is a product of the apartheid system, and I remember the Red Location used to house the British colonial army.
“So the entire makeup of the township inspired one to be involved in politics, because of its history based on oppression, resistance and the resilience of black people.”
Pikoli said for the people it was clear that the life they were living wasn’t the life they had hoped for.
When the ANC and PAC were banned in 1960 and prominent leaders either put in jail or forced into exile, schools became central in educating the youth, which culminated in the 1976 student uprising.
Inspired by the black consciousness movement, formations like the South African Student Movement (SASM) took hold in schools around the country.
Mkhuseli Jack, who moved to the township to complete his high school education, recalls how, even though his family had been forcibly removed from Humansdorp, eventually settling on a farm near Oyster Bay, the student movement and his fight to attain an education in the township revealed a systematic injustice.
“The 1976 uprising crystallised everything for me. It was the first time I started to think of the word politics and started to hear about parties such as the ANC and PAC,” Jack said.
“I believe I always had a sense of natural justice.
“But before then I used to think what happened to my family was our bad luck, never thinking it was because of a system.”
The tragedy of Soweto only hardened the resolve of students.
Mendi, in New Brighton, where Pikoli grew up, became the epicentre of violence — 33 people were killed and symbols of the regime such as the rent office, post office and Barclays Bank were attacked and others set alight.
“I saw [struggle hero] Nomvula Mnyazi being shot when a tavern close to my home was set alight,” Pikoli said.
“The youth had become very militant and there was virtually no acceptance of defeat, whether from conviction or naivety.
Pikoli had been expelled from Fort Hare after being involved in the boycotting of classes, in solidarity with the high school student movement.
Faku, who was active with SASM at Cowan High School, recalls how his preoccupation during his senior year in 1975 was recruiting members for exile and obtaining military training in Botswana.
He was arrested the following year ahead of the student uprising after he unwittingly tried to recruit an informer.
While the violence of 1976 left an indelible mark on the history of the township, it did not affect the character of the township.
“New Brighton was vibrant, it was not just about politics,” Faku says.
“There is an old song, Kumnandi ebhayi, batsho abavela khona (It’s great in Port Elizabeth says those who have been there), that captures the essence of growing up in New Brighton.
“There was violence as in other townships. We hosted celebrity shows and political gatherings,” he said.
Jack, recalled his first cinematic outing.
“It was the first time for me and I slept through the whole thing because I did not understand what was being said.”
The arts also contributed to political consciousness.
“Artists also expressed their activism in their respective crafts,” Pikoli said.
“We learnt ballroom dancing at the Cecil Kapi Hall and the Hoza Youth Club.
“There were indoor games like badminton, table tennis. All this was to keep us off the streets.”
It is many years since students set fire to the township hoping that one day a better home would rise from the ashes but New Brighton's days seem to be behind it.
Pikoli said these attitudes had since fallen by the wayside because New Brighton was now dirty and crime was rife
High unemployment persists and crime is rife.
“When we were growing up and because of the strong motor industry in town, it was easy to get a job,” Pikoli says.
“This I believe was a curse — many people never really pursued a university education.”
With a pantheon of accomplished people who contributed to the struggle against apartheid and those who further led in the democratic dispensation, Faku says it feels as if something is slipping away.
“Something is not enhancing the legacy left by the pathfinders and the cause of liberation is therefore getting compromised,” he said.
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