The weekend of the 25th and 26th of June 1955 was approaching. In the four corners of South Africa, after many months of campaigning, delegates had been elected. There had never been a campaign like it in the history of the South African struggle. According to Chief Albert Luthuli: “Nothing in the history of the liberatory movement in South Africa quite caught the popular imagination as this did, not even the Defiance Campaign. Even remote rural areas were aware of the significance of what was going on”.

However, the struggle to hold the Congress of the People was not yet over. Thousands of delegates had to be transported great distances to Kliptown. The apartheid government was determined to make life as difficult as possible for the delegates. On Friday 24th June the police were out in force. The last time, in fact the only time Eileen van de Vindt left the Western Cape, was a June weekend in 1955. She was just 18 years old. Eileen thinks back, as she looks out over the Cape Flats, with sand blowing around her tiny Lavender Hill council flat. She and her family were group area’d out here 13 years ago.

Van der Vindt: In 1955 I was involved with the Coloured People's Congress. We were living in District Six with cockroaches as big as THIS, and rats the size of kittens, but it was home. Not like Lavender Hill. Agh, it was nice. When I think of District Six, I feel soft inside … Anyways, ja, I was going to this club in town. It had dancing classes and art classes. Albie Sachs used to be there, and George Peake, and a writer … man, a coloured chap … umm.

Q: La Guma?

Van der Vindt: Jaa! That's right Alex La Guma. What they were doing at this club was first to let us mix. Coloureds, whites, Africans, Indians together. It was still those days, you know, when that wasn't easy. A person used to feel could you, can you, must you, or what? They never spoke specifically about “joining the ranks” or anything.