History, memory, space and power: the controversy over memorial plaques—Cathedral of St. Michael and St. George, Grahamstown, 1992 to 1996

Abstract

This study highlights the controversy that occurred in 1992 in Grahamstown between some Black students of the then St. Paul’s Theological College, and some ordinary Black members, and some White members of the Anglican Cathedral of St. Michael and St. George. It centered on the five nineteenth-century English colonial memorial plaques that were situated in the Cathedral. The controversy centered on the derogative term “kaffir” that was applied to the Xhosa people in stark contrast to the English depicted as heroes in the context of the English Wars of subjugation of the amaXhosa.