A hall of reckoning

At the heart of the University of Cape Town's (UCT) campus stands a Memorial Hall that now bears the name of Sarah Baartman, a space where memory, justice and pedagogy intersect. Here, questions of belonging are never abstract; they are profoundly, defiantly human.

"The main hall on the campus … has a lot to do with memory. So, it's about the past, the present, and the future, but not in a linear way because we can already see that the past, the present, and future coexist at the same time," said UCT's deputy vice-chancellor for Transformation, Social Responsiveness and Student Affairs, Professor Elelwani Ramogondo. She frames memory not as a static relic but as a living, breathing presence. Memory, here, refuses to sit quietly. It insists, it demands, it confronts.

On 13 December 2018, UCT announced: "We are pleased and proud to share with you a very important symbolic step that we have taken in the ongoing transformation of UCT. At a meeting on Saturday, 8 December 2018, Council made the historic decision to rename Memorial Hall after Khoi heroine Sarah Baartman."

That decision, sparked by the fervour and moral urgency of the #RhodesMustFall movement, was made possible by months of consultation with Khoi and San communities, academics, social justice activists and students. The hall, in this light, becomes more than brick and mortar. It is a glimpse into what restorative justice can look like in practice. And on 10 September 2025, a plaque officialising the renaming of the hall was unveiled during the spring graduation ceremony. It reads, in part:

"The naming of the hall in honour of Sarah Baartman was to celebrate her life as an indigenous woman and as a powerful reminder of the harm caused by 19th-century European racist science. Her legacy speaks globally to the colonial mutilation of the female indigenous body during life and after death.

"Sarah Baartman is a global iconic figure who is seen and recognised as the embodiment of restitution and healing. Through this naming in her honour, her spirit is being allowed to be returned to the ancient African landscape within which this university is situated. Through her symbolic homecoming to this landscape where she once walked and of which she held ancient knowledge, UCT becomes a beacon for transformation towards social justice, a sanctuary for students, and a safe space for all to engage with colonial histories of dispossession in meaningful, impactful ways."

Door is open

Taariq Jenkins, founding member of the A/Xarra Restorative Justice Forum, recalled: "We became an African institution. We opened the door to ourselves, and now the question remains: to what extent are we entering into this building? We have created this amazing space, a haven for the spirit of Sarah Baartman to thrive, and it's open to all of us."

Jenkins's words carry the weight of both ceremony and struggle: the echo of a hall once named for colonial governor Leander Starr Jameson, a close ally of Cecil Rhodes and central figure in the failed Jameson Raid of 1895. Jameson's name had for decades presided over UCT's most symbolic space. Now, that echo resounds with "reclamation".

Historic records document the life and tragic fate of Sarah Baartman (c. 1789-1815), a Khoi woman from the Eastern Cape. Coaxed to Europe under false pretences, she was objectified and exhibited as the "Hottentot Venus". Dissected after her death, her remains, and even a plaster cast of her body, were displayed in Paris's Musée de l'Homme for nearly two centuries. In 2002, following persistent advocacy, Baartman's remains were finally repatriated and buried in the Eastern Cape.

From conversations with Professor Nomusa Makhubu, Professor June Bam-Hutchison, Professor Ramugondo, Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela and Jenkins, one truth emerges: this renaming, long gestating and long demanded, bursts open a plenitude of discussions about belonging, heritage and historical justice within the institution and even more broadly.

Symbolism

Ramugondo underlines the symbolism: "On the one hand you have Jameson - the historic figure and the legacy that he represents - juxtaposed against Sarah Baartman, who as a mother figure on the continent, was subjected to the horrors of colonisation and the excesses of empire. We have the #RhodesMustFall [movement] to thank for the consciousness that forced us to sit with symbolic representations in the names we give to buildings."

One of the most powerful aspects of this act of renaming lies in language. Jenkins emphasises: "It's important for us to embrace the powerful eyes of Sarah Baartman. From the positioning of really beginning to embrace what we are seeing and how we wish to see it - our outlook becomes an outlook that connects to our ancestral self. It connects to the rivers, to the stars, to our language that has been lost."

"We have created this amazing space, a haven for the spirit of Sarah Baartman to thrive, and it's open to all of us."

He continued: "It's important for us to click together in [honour of] Sarah Baartman, to reclaim these beautiful linguistic traits that were painfully removed during colonial times, when front teeth were deliberately extracted to stop our people from clicking. This is one example of the embodied, intergenerational trauma carried by the descendants of the Khoi, the San, and the enslaved communities who together form our diverse African heritage. By renewing this language, by encouraging us to click together, we are moving towards a collective sense of dignity. We should encourage this university to be a space that clicks together. And by finding our mother tongue, we begin to proudly find ourselves."

Here, the hall becomes an instrument of re-humanisation. To click together, to articulate together - is to resist erasure.

Art historian and chairperson of the Works of Art Collection (WOAC) committee, Professor Makhubu echoes this: "I think she [Baartman] represents that tenacity … even with all that she endured - the violence, the caging, she survives in memory. For us, the idea is that we don't keep that history in a cage. We seek those other layers that inspire us to understand the value of life, and the rights of women and children."

For students, the hall now speaks differently. Its name refuses erasure. Memory here becomes pedagogy.

Ramugondo reflected: "When thinking about the hall as a place where Sarah Baartman's voice comes alive, I'm drawn to the graduation programme where ululation and celebration are expressed in ways that reflect our communities as Africans. It allows us to move away from traditions inherited through colonial ceremony and reclaim the joy of celebration on our own terms."

As South African institutions confront their colonial legacies, UCT's renaming of Sarah Baartman Hall offers a precedent: symbolic acts can open real doors to reframe the archive, rehumanise memory and reorient pedagogy.