This tour is a unique two-hour experience giving you the opportunity to catch a glimpse of life in one of Graaff-Reinet's townships namely Umasizakhe. Walk around with your local guide Isaac and visit a local family where you can enjoy refreshments and roosterbrood, which is a bread roll baked on an open fire. View some of the local aspects of the Xhosa culture and purchase handmade goods that are for sale.
During your Township Tour you will pass by the house where Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan African Congress (PAC), was born in 1924.
Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was the seventh child of a local Xhosa family. He won a scholarship to Healdtown, a Methodist boarding school near Fort Beaufort.
He graduated from the University of Fort Hare in 1947 where he joined the African National Congress Youth League.
In 1954 the University of the Witwatersrand hired him as a language instructor. In later years he was qualified as a lawyer.
He became a charismatic member of the Africanist wing of the ANC. However he questioned the ANC's strategy of co-operating with whites and formed the breakaway PAC in 1959.
In 1960 he launched the nationwide anti-pass protests, which ended in the Sharpeville massacre. He was imprisoned and served on Robben Island for nine years. He was released from Robben Island in 1969 and confined to the Kimberley municipality area.
He died on 25 February 1978. He was buried in Graaff-Reinet and over 5,000 people attended his funeral.
His grave can also be visited, please request this from Isaac beforehand, since additional transport is required to the cemetery (not within walking distance)
Isaac Cell Number: 083 559 1207
