Ventersdorp


Ventersdorp is a town of 4,200 in Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality, North West Province, South Africa. It is the seat of Ventersdorp Local Municipality.

History

The town grew around a Dutch Reformed Church that was established in 1866. It was named after Johannes Venter who owned the farm Roodepoort and the land the church was built on. It was proclaimed as a town in June 1887. The Afrikaner nationalist Eugène Terre'Blanche was born in Ventersdorp, and the town is the base of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, the far-right secessionist political organisation and former paramilitary group which Terre'Blanche founded. Ventersdorp is centrally located, making it easier to access more prominent urban towns such as Klerksdorp, Lichtenburg, Potchefstroom and Rustenburg. The Tshing township has a diamond mine nearby: a town councillor owned it in the early 1990s. Tshing Location has one High school

Racial segregation

The township of Tshing houses most of the town's blacks and coloureds. The township's secondary school, with an enrolment of 1,000, has no white students or staff.
In contrast, the Ventersdorp High School has had non-white students attending since 1995. These students are mostly Afrikaans speaking coloured residents of the smaller township Toevlug.

External sources