Mahatma Gandhi's home at the Phoenix Settlement. He built his house, called Sarvodaya (meaning universal uplift or progress of all), when he arrived in Durban in 1904. On the same plot of land, he built his famous printing house where he published his newspaper, Indian Opinion. Gandhi's house was burnt down during the 1985 Inanda riots, which was a fight between Indians and blacks during the apartheid years. After 1994, his house was rebuilt, keeping as much to the original design as possible. The house contains an exhibition of Gandhi's life and work.
CONGRATULATIONS to the community of Phoenix on its 50th anniversary. Indeed, when I look at the history of Phoenix from my home at the Phoenix Settlement, established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1904, where I was born in 1940, and where I lived until 1975, the journey of Phoenix is indeed a glorious one of blood, sweat, tears and resilience.
I attended the Inanda State Aided Primary School with pupils from New Farm and the nearby sugar barracks, and I got to know them. I worked as a social worker in the 1960s in the Springfield Flats or Tin Town, as the people knew it. In the 1970s, I worked in the Phoenix Mount Edgecombe area when it was covered with sugar fields. There were workers living in the various barracks in the sugar estate.
