Walls and Constitution Hill

"They told you your life was over beyond this gate" -Nolundi Ntamo
Entrance to the woman's prison at Constitution Hill. Former site of prison within Johannesburg leading up to and during Apartheid. Now home to NGO's and the Constitutional court.

Walls change us and our freedoms at times. And walls and jails can be said to break people. These walls tell stories that could have broken so many. But there are ideas greater than walls, so behind these walls great leaders slept. Some broken and some changed, but ready to work for freedom. I don't know how, but even behind these gates and walls, all life was not lost. And the very same walls are now used to uphold the human rights that weren't even considered within the very same bricks before.

"The city was a dangerous place if you were black. Women going about their business shopping or trying to make a living selling fruit or other food were vulnerable to arbitrary arrest. They were randomly accosted by the police, herded into kwela-kwela bans or marched on foot to this jail for transgressing petty apartheid laws. With babies on their backs, shopping bags in their hands and dreams in their hearts, their daily lives were regularly disrupted." -Constitution Hill

'My Grandmother taught us to say goodbye every time we left because we never knew if we would come back or not. We used to say, "If you don't see me, check for me at Number Four." -Nolundi Ntamo, pass offender, 1980 and then repeatedly