The House at 6001 by Lebo Diseko is a moving memoir about love, loss, resistance, and survival during and after the 1976 Soweto uprising
By Mapaballo Borotho
The House at 6001 is a beautifully written memoir that takes readers back to a painful yet deeply human period in South African history during and after the 1976 uprising – when people dared to love, dream, and survive despite a system designed to strip them of their dignity.
Written by Lebo Diseko, who is not only an author but also a journalist focusing on international news, the book serves as both a memoir and a tribute to the people who sacrificed their lives during the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
Diseko said it was important for her to document the story as a way of honouring those who fought for the democracy that ordinary South Africans get to enjoy today.
“This was never meant to be my story. I really wanted to honour the people that made me and the people who sacrificed their lives in the struggle, who gave their lives for us to have the democracy that we have today.
“I am also intrigued by the youth. When I hear my parents describe how young they were when they participated in the struggle, and continued to live life as young people do,” she said.
Diseko emphasised that what moved her most was how, even during times of horror and brutality, people still found ways to continue living. Children were born, families carried on, and people still fell in love.
The book reminds readers that the Soweto uprising was not just a one-day event confined to one township. The resistance spread across the country, even to places where many stories were never documented and remain untold.
Children were killed by police in schools almost daily, and even at funerals, which became spaces of resistance and mourning, were often invaded by police, resulting in more violence and death.
Nearly 50 years later, many South Africans still carry the trauma of apartheid. Some parents never got the chance to bury their children, while others died waiting for closure.
Diseko explained that apartheid not only took lives but also stripped people of their dignity and robbed families of sentimental belongings and memories.
“I had heard a lot about my dad’s poetry, but I had never actually heard it. Unfortunately, because of police raids, exile, and constantly moving around, a lot of it was lost. But I did find some of it in the security files. The security forces had said his work was seditious in nature, and that is the primary reason he was banned,” she said.
The memoir also explores the painful reality of exile and how Diseko’s family eventually left the country, despite her grandparents believing that life at 6001 would be better than life in exile.
Her grandparents had already lost their son, her father, to exile, and they wanted Lebo to stay behind as a final connection to him.
“And so began the painful conversations between my mom and my grandparents about whether I would stay with them or go with her. A series of delicate talks, with each side negotiating for a piece of their heart that had manifested in me.
“My grandparents made a case that life would be better for me at 6001. My mother said that may have been true, but she would sooner cut off her limb than leave her baby. Each of them tried to be kind to one another, mindful not to say words that could not be taken back. Eventually, time was the arbiter. My mother sat my grandmother down, held her hand, and told her she was going to meet my father, and she was taking Lebo with her,” the book reads.
For the full conversation, listen to the podcast…
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