Camps Bay's Finest Hour

Published in the Atlantic Sun 30th Anniversary edition 1 Sept 2011

Long before F. W. De Klerk heralded the transformation of South Africa in 1990 by freeing Nelson Mandela and unbanning the ANC, the Camps Bay Ratepayers and Residents Association (CBRRA), after a very hectic public meeting, decided in the early 1980s that the continuing banning of people of colour from beaches and Camps Bay’s beaches in particular was totally unacceptable.

It approached the then Provincial Administrator Gene Louw and Nationalist Party Minster Piet Koornhof in the early 1980s to permit Camps Bay to open its beaches to all. This permission was cautiously given on condition that CBRRA did not make it officially known.

When the public at large learned that this beach was opened to all, the first December holiday season was absolutely chaotic, with huge crowds, mass misbehaviour (braais were permitted on the beach in those days) overcrowding and general intolerance.

At the end of the season the then government insisted that a 2 metre high fence be erected to enclose half of the main beachfront with a R2 entry fee! The result of this absurd situation resulted in the whole of the previous year’s crowd squeezing into the free half of the beach and hardly any bathers at all using the pay section (see photograph)

At the end of the second holiday season, CBRRA persuaded the government to remove the fence, open the beach and ban braais to reduce misbehaviour.

Camps Bay main beach was the first beach in South Africa to be opened to all races in the modern era, when apartheid was at its height. Within two years, long before the government disappeared, and in spite of the relevant restrictive apartheid laws still being in place, every beach in South Africa was opened to all races, thus helping to starting the reform impetus which led to F.W De Klerk being able to do what he did.

The fence? To this day it exists in the vicinity of the Edgar Lipsett Oval and Maidens Cove, a monument to the splendid example of racial tolerance initiated by Camps Bay.

John Powell

Vice Chairperson

CBRRA