The House at 6001 – A Memoir of Uprising and Exile

By Lebo Diseko

On 16 June 1976, thousands of Black South African school children took to the streets of Soweto.

Students protested the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction under apartheid education.

Police met the protests with brutal force. Many children never returned home. This day is now remembered as the start of the Soweto Uprising. It also echoed through 6001, the Orlando East home of Lebo Diseko’s family.

The House as a site of resistance and memory

In The House at 6001: A Memoir of Uprising and Exile, Diseko follows the lives of her parents, aunts and uncles. They organised, debated and resisted inside a cramped four-room Soweto house.

The home became both a private refuge and a political space. It carried the weight of struggle, fear and defiance at once. From banning orders to forced exile, the family endured constant surveillance and disruption. Yet they also created moments of joy through music, storytelling, and late-night gatherings. Together, these contrasts shape the emotional core of The House at 6001: A Memoir of Uprising and Exile.

Diseko builds her narrative from unsealed government documents, interviews, and personal reflection. She also retraces her own journey back into her family’s past and physical home.
Through this process, she reconstructs a layered history of resistance and loss. The memoir reveals how political repression shaped ordinary domestic life.

About the author

Lebo Diseko works for the BBC, focusing on international news and global religion. She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand. She also holds a 2024 Harvard Nieman Fellowship. The House at 6001: A Memoir of Uprising and Exile marks her debut publication. The book arrives as South Africa marks 50 years since the Soweto Uprising.