Long forgotten, Black South African servicemen who died in WWI are finally honored with a memorial
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The names are carved on poles of African hardwood that are set upright as if reaching for the sun. No one knows where the men they represent were buried. But their names, forgotten for more than a century, have been revived and are now written in the records of history.
Black South African servicemen who died in non-combat roles on the Allied side during World War I and have no known grave have been recognized with a memorial featuring 1,772 names. An inscription on a granite block at the memorial in Cape Town says: “Your legacies are preserved here.”.
Because they were Black, they were not allowed to carry arms. They were members of the Cape Town Labor Corps, transporting food, ammunition and other supplies and building roads and bridges during the Great War. They didn't serve in Europe but in the fringe battles in Africa, where Allied forces fought in the then-German colonies of German South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now Tanzania).
The men made the same ultimate sacrifice as around 10 million others who died serving in armies in the 1914-1918 war. After the war, they were not recognized because of the racial policies of British colonialism and then South Africa's apartheid regime.
The memorial finally rights a historical wrong, said the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the British organization that looks after war graves and built the new memorial in Cape Town's oldest public garden. The memorial was opened Wednesday by Britain's Princess Anne, the commission's president.
