KwaMuhle Museum depicts Durban as an African city searching for identity within a new political context.
This museum shows a history experienced by the residents, a reality portrayed without criticism or bias, and reflects the history and experiences that had never been accessible to the people of Durban.
KwaMuhle is in no sense an apartheid museum. Nor is it an African History Museum. It is a museum that documents Durban's urban growth, the interaction, relationships and confrontations that made up the everyday events of ordinary people.
KwaMuhle portrays the points of contact between Durban's cultures and represents aspects of the municipality's role in our history.
The building housing the exibits was designed to accommodate the movement of large numbers of people, and use has been made of the wide open spaces for the exhibitions and educational activities.
This double-storey Union style building, once the headquarters of the City's Native Administration Department, was the centre of Durban's infamous system of labour control.
Exhibitions include collections of large black and white prints reflecting township life, and an accurate depiction of the histories of black political trade union and cultural organisations and groupings.
The vision of all the exhibits centres on correcting the inaccuracies in the historical record left by Apartheid, to create a heritage and context for our new democracy that is forthright, candid and honest.
The displays deal with topics that challenge the onlooker to interpret their convictions, and to reassess their understanding of South Africa, past, present and future.
