Trafalgar High School is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

English medium co-educational secondary school in

District Six District Six (Afrikaans: ''Distrik Ses'') is a residential neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa, located next to the city's Cape Town CBD, CBD. In 1959, people of color were banned from the area and most of them were resettled in Gugulet ...

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

in South Africa. It was the first school built in Cape Town for

coloured Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...

and

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

students. The school took a leading role in protesting against

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

policies. It celebrated its centenary in 2012 and is still running and was recently declared a heritage site.

History

Trafalgar High School was supported as a direct result of a damning criticism of the Cape School Board in the newspaper of the African Political Organization (APO) in August 1911. Investigations found that the board had created no benefit at all for students who were non-

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

.History
school site, retrieved 11 August 2014."Trafalgar High School, Cape Town, marks 100 years"
South African History Online, retrieved 11 August 2014. The board was lobbied by Abdullah Abdurahman of the APO. As a result, this school gained Harold Cressy as head teacher in 1912.Harold Cressey
SAHistory, retrieved 13 August 2014. Cressy was the first coloured person to gain a Bachelor of Arts degree in South Africa,"City School turns 100"
iol.co.za, January 2012, retrieved August 2014. and the nearby

Harold Cressy High School Harold Cressy High School is a secondary school in District Six of Cape Town in South Africa. It was founded in January 1951 as the Cape Town Secondary School. The school has played a substantial role in South African history during the aparth ...

is now named after him. The school was initially known as the Trafalgar Second Class Public School, and had five teachers and 60 students. The school was co-educational and in the first year girls were just in the majority. Harold Cressy of Cape Town

Cressy was able to report a year later, in 1913, that a girl at the school had been the first coloured female student to pass the "School Higher". The girl was Abdullah Abdurahman's daughter, Rosie Waradea Abdurahman. The APO report on this success praised the girl, the principal and the school, but it gave no credit to the school board as the school was still poorly supplied. Cressy had frequently been unhealthy and early in March 1916 he got pneumonia. By this time the school had a new site and a new building was being constructed after the school board donated £3,000. Cressy had established the school and an association for teachers, but he died that August. South African politics affected the school's teaching staff. In 1957 Benjamin Kies who taught at the school was banned from teaching for life because he was leading the

Teachers' League of South Africa The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board () is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian province of Ontario. Ontario Teachers' also invests the plan's pension fund an ...

. He had to also stand down as editor of the Leagues ''Educational Journal'' and that role was taken over by Helen Kies who was an alumnus of this school. In 1964 Sedick Isaacs who was the mathematics and physics teacher at the school was sentenced to twelve years in

Robben Island Robben Island () is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch language, Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrika ...

for sabotage. He was given an extended sentence in 1969 for operating a radio and making a master key to the cells. THS 3

The school has frequently had more students than resources. It has also faced opposition. During the 1970s the community of District Six was moved and the plan was to move the school from its current location. On 11 February 1966,

P. W. Botha Pieter Willem Botha, ( , ; 12 January 1916 – 31 October 2006) was a South African politician who served as the last Prime Minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and as the first executive State President of South Africa from 1984 until ...

declared that District Six was to be emptied to make way for white residents under the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a syste ...

and bulldozers moved in."Trafalgar High School becomes Homeless World Cup Village"
, retrieved 11 August 2014. However the school felt strongly about its history and it, like Harold Cressy High School, refused to be moved. By 1982, 60,000 people had been moved out of the area and rehoused in the

Cape Flats The Cape Flats () is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. The Cape Flats is also the name of an administrative region of the City of Cape Town, which lies within the larger geo ...

."Heritage Impact Assessment"
Quahnita Samie and Constance Pansegrouw, 2014 for Harold Cressy Alumni Association, retrieved 15 August 2014. This meant that many students had to be transported in to fill the school and no student lives within a kilometre. However the school still achieved high pass rates. In 1984 the authorities planned to close the school to non-white secondary students and they wanted to re-open it as a whites-only infant school. It was admitted that they planned to improve the school before white children would use it. The head at that time led the opposition to these plans.1984 history
school site, retrieved 11 August 2014. In 1985 the political unrest meant that many students did not receive the education they might expect and for that reason the school decided to get every student to repeat that year so that they would not be overly disadvantaged. More recently the school has had the time to make its own contributions. In 2006 the school became the athletes village when the Homeless World Cup came to Africa, and in 2011 it was host to plans to fix District Six. A new plan to redevelop the land that had been depopulated in District Six was unveiled at the school. The plan attracted attention especially from people who used to live near the school as they were expecting compensation for their forced eviction.

School song

The school song's chorus refers to the students as Trafalgarians:School Song
School website, retrieved 14 August 2014.

Notable alumni

* Zainunnisa Abdurahman "Cissie" Gool – anti-apartheid political leader *

Ottilie Abrahams Ottilie Grete Abrahams (2 September 19372 July 2018) was a Namibian educator, activist, and politician. Personal Abrahams was born on 2 September 1937 in the Old Location township outside of Windhoek. Abrahams was the daughter of Otto Schimming ...

(née Schimming) – activist * Siraj Desai – judge * Vera Gow – opera singer * Alex La Guma – writer * Hassan Howa - activist for non-segregated sport *

Abdullah Ibrahim Abdullah Ibrahim (born Adolph Johannes Brand on 9 October 1934), previously known as Dollar Brand, is a South African pianist and composer. His music reflects many of the musical influences of his childhood in the multicultural port areas of Cap ...

(formerly known as Dollar Brand) – composer * Sedick Isaacs – mathematics and physics teacher who spent 13 years on Robben Island * Bennie Kies – professor and anti-apartheid activist (teacher at the school) * Helen Kies (née Abrahams), teacher, activist, journalistHelen Kies
SAHistory Online, retrieved 17 August 2014. * Rahima Moosa – activist *

Dullah Omar Abdullah Mohamed Omar OLS (26 May 1934 – 13 March 2004), better known as Dullah Omar, was a South African anti-Apartheid activist, lawyer, and a minister in the South African cabinet from 1994 until his death. Early life and education B ...

– politician and minister of justice * Richard Rive – author * Fatima Seedat – activistFatima Seedat
SAHistory, retrieved 13 August 2014. * Reggie September – trade unionist and Member of Parliament * Sydney Vernon Petersen - Poet and founding principal of Athlone High School

References

External links

* {{Cape Town, education Schools in Cape Town 1912 establishments in South Africa Educational institutions established in 1912