Alice

The town of Alice, the University of Fort Hare and the De Beers Centenary Art Gallery

The small town of Alice in the Eastern Cape is the home of the University of Fort Hare – the “Crucible of African Leadership” and the ‘alma mater’ of Apartheid Struggle figures such as the great Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and Thabo Mbeki among many other well-known black ANC figures.

Alice originally grew around a 19th British military encampment called Fort Hare, which later became a missionary station that ministered to the Xhosa population of the area. The Presbyterian missionaries endeavoured to educate young Xhosa people at the turn of the last Century when colonial encroachment and war had tattered a traditional way of life. To that end they built a school called Lovedale. In 1916 the old military encampment was transformed into a University Campus to provide tertiary education to graduates of Lovedale and other black schools in the racially divided education system of Southern Africa. Most struggle leaders and many of the current political leaders of South Africa have been educated at Lovedale and at the University of Fort Hare.

The University of Fort Hare is world class educational institute and is also the repository of the archives of the African National Congress. The Campus also houses one of the most significant collections of African Art on the continent – the De Beers Centenary Gallery.

For more info and to arrange a tour of the University and De Beers Gallery: E-mail

Getting there: Alice lies 60km to the north-west of King Williams Town on the R63.