Legacy of Lentegeur library in shaping community history

THE story of Lentegeur cannot be told without including the significance of the Lentegeur library and the contributions of the staff who worked there, especially during the 1980s.

- ALICIA ENGLISH

In 2006, Professor Archie Dick from the Department of Information Science at Pretoria University wrote in a paper, Struggle Libraries Under Cover, that the Lentegeur library served both political and nonpolitical purposes during that time.

“The Lentegeur public library staff, according to former librarian Reverend Clarence Cheemee, used the resources to reach out to the community despite difficult circumstances. Its space was both offered to and claimed by community groups to serve a range of purposes both political and nonpolitical. The UDF-aligned Mitchell's Plain Youth Movement, for example, used the library hall,” he wrote.

According to Dick, the library successfully recovered memories and memorabilia from former District Six residents who had been displaced to Lentegeur by the Group Areas Act in the 1980s.

“Library staff members appealed to the community for photographs and other District Six remnants, and constructed an impressive exhibition.