Museum Africa, Johannesburg's major history and cultural history museum, is housed in the Newtown Cultural Precinct's old fruit and vegetable market - which was built in 1913 and has now been imaginatively converted into a modern building. A huge collection of objects, paintings and photographs has been collected since 1935, telling the story of South Africa.
Museum Africa is a journey back into the glory years of the Africa continent’s past, when the first civilisations thrived. Not only is Museum Africa one of the most beautiful buildings where it lies right next door to the Market Theatre complex in Bree Street, Newtown, but it is also a museum with a difference - people who have visited museums throughout the world remark at the interesting and unique approach to the main displays. Museum Africa is a journey back into the glory years of the Africa continent’s past, when the first civilisations thrived. It is not a revisionist African history written by biased Afrocentric scholars. The journey through Africa’s history visits places like Kemet, now known as Egypt, Kush (Sudan) and Punt (Somalia), which the ancients called ‘God’s country’. Museum Africa is about a time the world forgot; a time very little of the world knows; a rich history with which a generation of black children can identify and correct the record on African history as it has been presented up until now. Museum Africa’s collection and research focuses on indigenous African cultures, history and archaeology, and linguistics, and the collection of rock art is more than impressive. The collected works of art contain many local artists as well as Pre-Raphaelite and Impressionist paintings. One of the main displays covers the Treason Trial where more than 150 people who included Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and Walter Sisulu, were charged with treason, with no convictions. The defendants are each portrayed in a display that contains their portrait and a small biographical plaque. Under each portrait is a little red book in which the public is invited to write comments and facts about the person.
