Zwelitsha, Eastern Cape

Zwelitsha is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. From 1972 to 1981 it served as the provisional capital of the Bantustan of Ciskei, until the capital could be moved to Alice, and then to Bhisho. It forms part of the Buffalo City Local Municipality.

Also in 1972 it became the insurgent center of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) with the Mapetla Mohapi and Mongezi Sefika wa Nkmo starting a workstudy/political circle in Zone 10 area to launch later in January 1973, the Black Peoples Convention (BPC), King William's Town, Branch with Zwelitsha as the HQ. BCM activists and leaders including Bantu Steve Biko, Harry Ranwedzi Nengekhulu, Welile Nhlapho paid visit in early that including the launching of the Nattional Youth Organization (NAYO) a Black Consciousness youth wing at nearby Mount Coke Hotel.

Zwelitsha was created in 1947/8 as corridor township to King William's Town to provide labor for Good Hope Textile Factory of the Da Gama Group, South Africa. As a vestige of the liberal United Party government it had "middle class" pretentions in terms of neat middle school, clinic, shopping center, dairy, inhouse plumbing, bathrooms and toilet toilets unlike matchbox houses that had no outhouses and no plumbing created by the apartheid regime since taking power in 1948. With the entrenchment of aprtheid by the early 1960s Zones 6-10 were added to the original Zones 1 to 5.