GALA Mission Statement
The advancement, development and rights of LGBTI people depend on an accurate record and representation of their struggles. GALA mobilises memory by documenting and popularizing the lives and histories of LGBTI South Africans. In so doing it contributes to the development of pride, challenges homophobia and entrenches the rights of LGBTI people.
GALA Office and Archive Hours
Monday to Friday
9 am - 5 pm
Community Library Hours
Tuesday 1 – 4
Saturday 2 – 4:30
Contact Us
+27 11 717 4239
Fax: +27 11 717 1783
info@gala.co.za
GALA is a member of the Joint Working Group (JWG), a national network of LGTBI focused organisations in South Africa.
City Tours
Queer Johannesburg Tour
GALA's Queer Johannesburg tour reveals the thread of lesbian and gay history and experience in the tapestry of the cosmopolitan city. From parfaits d'amour at the Waldorf Hotel to gay students in the 1976 Soweto Uprising, see Jo'burg ‘queerly' as you never have before.
We will visit:
- The site of the infamous gay Forest Town party raided by the police in 1966 and hear about the moral panic which followed
- Constitution Hill and see how today's constitutional equality for Gays and Lesbians is built on the site where thousands of men were incarcerated for ‘immorality'
- Hillbrow and Joubert Park, and hear about how gay Johannesburg life started here during World War II
- Simon Nkoli Corner in Hillbrow and see the famous Harrison Reef Hotel, which housed South Africa's longest-running gay bar and was also home to Africa's first black gay and lesbian church - HOPE and Unity Metropolitan and Community Church (HUMCC)
- A migrant labour hostel and hear about the mkehlo, the mine marriage, and other aspects of homosexuality on the mines
- Soweto through the eyes of one of its young lesbian residents, Busi Kheswa, and hear about the township's gay history and ‘the life' on its streets today; and find out about the ‘gay angle' on the Soweto 1976 Uprising.
- A lesbian sangoma (traditional healer), who takes us to her consulting room and explains the relationship between her sexuality and her ancestors.
Queer Johannesburg has been piloted over the last two years to visiting tourists and conference delegates, and has been very well received. Queer Johannesburg was developed in collaboration with renowned author Mark Gevisser and is led by two dynamic guides - GALA archivist Anthony Manion, whose knowledge of South Africa's queer history is encyclopaedic and outreach co-ordinator, and oral history interviewer Busi Kheswa. Kheswa is a long-time Soweto resident, a facilitator of a support group for the gay and lesbian community at HIVSA located in the Wits Chris Hani Baragwanath Peri-Natal HIV Research Unit, and an elder of the Hope and Unity Metropolitan Community Church, Africa's first openly gay black church.
The tour is part of GALA's mission to popularise gay and lesbian history and experience by developing creative ways of introducing gay and straight people alike to wealth of material it has collected.
