Monuments, museums, plaques, outdoor art, heritage trails and other symbolic representations create visible reminders of, and commemorate, the many aspects of South Africa’s past.
Government has initiated several national legacy projects to establish commemorative symbols of South Africa’s history and to celebrate its heritage.
The legacy projects include the:

• Women’s Monument: On 9 August 2000, former President Thabo Mbeki unveiled a monument at the Union Buildings in Pretoria to commemorate the contribution of the women of South Africa to the struggle for freedom. The ceremony marked the day, in 1956, when 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings to protest against government’s pass laws.
• Chief Albert Luthuli’s house in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal: This house has been restored by the Department of Arts and Culture as a museum with a visitors’ interpretative centre. The project also involved the unveiling of Chief Luthuli’s sculpture at the KwaDukuza municipal grounds.
• Battle of Blood River/Ncome Project: Following the unveiling of the Ncome Monument and Wall of Remembrance on 16 December 1998, the Ncome Museum was opened on 26 November 1999. The structures honour the role played by the Zulu nation in the battle.
• Samora Machel Project: The Samora Machel Monument in Mbuzini, Mpumalanga, was unveiled on 19 October 1998.
• Nelson Mandela Museum: This museum in the Eastern Cape was opened on 11 February 2000. It is being developed as a single component comprising three elements, namely a museum in Mthatha, a youth centre at Qunu, and a visitors’ centre in Mvezo, where former President Mandela was born.
• Constitution Hill Project: The Old Fort Prison in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, was developed into a multidimensional and multipurpose precinct that houses the Constitutional Court (CC) and accommodates various constitutional commissions.
  The Constitution Hill Project involved the development of the Constitutional Hill precinct to accommodate the CC, the Constitution Museum, the Women’s Jail, the Old Fort and a commercial precinct.
• The Sarah Baartman Centre of Remembrance in Hankey in the Eastern Cape and the Sarah Baartman Human Rights Memorial in the Western Cape: The centre will include a multipurpose space, a library, exhibition spaces, an indigenous plants garden and a nursery.
• The Freedom Park Project: The objective of this project is to establish visible cultural structures that celebrate and commemorate diverse and important South African events, spanning prehistory, colonisation and the struggle for democracy, and ending with a vision for the future.
  The park was declared a cultural institution in terms of the Cultural Institutions Act, 1998 (Act 119 of 1998), from April 2009. On completion, the Freedom Park will be a national monument and museum.
• The Khoisan Heritage and Culture Institution in Hankey, Kouga Municipality, as part of the Khoisan Legacy Project: An estimated R5 million was allocated for the first phase.
  Sites under consideration include the Kat River valley settlement, which rose in rebellion against British colonialism in 1850; Adam Kok’s grave in Griqualand; the graves at Kinderlê, where 32 Khoi children were killed in 1804; Wonderwerk Cave; Phillipolis; Ratelgat, owned by the Griqua Ratelgat Development Trust; the sites of Griqua churches and other institutions in the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Western
  Cape; as well battle sites associated with the war of 1799 to 1803.
• The Dulcie September Legacy Project: It aims to acknowledge the heroes who sacrificed their lives for the attainment of freedom and democracy in South Africa. The project also highlights the contribution of anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September in fighting cultural intolerance and building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and cohesive society.
• The 2010 FIFA World Cup^TM legacy projects: The Department of Arts and Culture is supporting FIFA 2010 legacy projects that seek to document cultural histories of the host cities as well as cities in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The department is also looking into rural communities benefiting from the projects through the establishment of cinemas in rural areas as a legacy of the public viewing areas established for the 2010 event.

Other projects underway are the 1981 Matola Raid Memorial in Maputo, Mozambique; the rehabilitation and development of the Lock Street women’s prison in East London into a museum; development of the former apartheid state security Vlakplaas farm into a heritage memorial site; and the OR Tambo Memorial Project in Bizana in the Eastern Cape.

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