Steve Biko Centre, Ginsberg
What actually happens
Ginsberg was founded in 1901 on the west bank of the river. In 1939, Black residents of Brownlee Station in town were moved here. Steve Biko lived here under a banning order from 1973, and founded the Zimele Trust Fund in 1975.
Why people doubt it
Memory collected by outsiders tends to leave with them: onto foreign servers, behind paywalls, in English. People have watched their stories become someone else’s thesis.
Where it could stick
Elders record on a phone, in isiXhosa. The archive stays in Ginsberg, owned by the people who spoke. Zimele.
From the classroom
Interviewing an elder is research, the same skill as a school project, only the archive stays home. Speech-to-text helps you listen to many voices; it does not do the listening for you.
Imagine
What if Ginsberg’s memory stayed in Ginsberg, in its own voices?