Zwelitsha is a town situated along the R346 Regional Route in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It falls within the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.
History
Zwelitsha was created in 1947 as a corridor township to King William’s Town (officially renamed Qonce) to provide labour for the Good Hope Textile Factory of the Da Gama Group, South Africa. As a vestige of the liberal United Party government, it had “middle-class” pretensions in terms of neat schools, clinics, shopping centers, dairy, in-house plumbing, bathrooms, and toilets. With the entrenchment of apartheid by the early 1960s, Zones 6-10 were added to the original Zones 1 to 5.
From 1972 to 1981, it served as the provisional capital of the Bantustan of Ciskei, until the capital could be moved to Alice (officially renamed Dikeni), and then to Bhisho.
Also in 1972, it became the insurgent center of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) with Mapetla Mohapi and Mongezi Sefika wa Nkomo starting a work-study/political circle in the Zone 10 area to launch later in January 1973, the Black People’s Convention (BPC), King William’s Town, Branch with Zwelitsha as the HQ. BCM activists and leaders, including Steve Biko, Harry Ranwedzi Nengekhulu, Welile Nhlapho, paid a visit in early that included the launching of the National Youth Organization (NAYO), a Black Consciousness youth wing at nearby Mount Coke Hotel.
