She also toured a museum that memorializes the forced segregation of a once vibrant and racially mixed area of this South African coastal city.
The visit to the District Six Museum was a consolation prize to replace a long-planned ferry ride to Robben Island for the first lady and her traveling family members. The first lady’s aides blamed the decision to abandon the half-hour ferry ride on high winds that made the Atlantic Ocean waters too rough to cross.
Former President Nelson Mandela was jailed on Robben Island for 18 years for his role in the movement to abolish apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation.
Apartheid ended in 1994, when Mandela was elected president several years after he again became a free man.
A tour of the closet-sized cell that housed Mandela also those years was expected to be an emotional high point of the trip. Aides said Mrs. Obama was looking forward to the visit.
Instead, she and her family spent about an hour at the museum on a tour led by the director and a former District Six resident.
They also heard stories from Ahmed Kathrada, a former political prisoner and apartheid icon who was jailed on Robben Island with Mandela.
Kathrada and Mandela are buddies. Kathrada was among seven men sentenced on June 12, 1964, with Mandela to life in prison for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the white government. Mandela was already in prison in a separate case but became a defendant in the so-called Rivonia treason trial because of documents found at Rivonia linking him to activities there.
The museum memorializes a sector of Cape Town that was established in 1867 as a racially mixed area but was forcibly segregated in 1965. Non-whites were removed to barren outlying areas and their homes in District Six were destroyed.
After the museum tour, Mrs. Obama took her family to lunch at a restaurant that serves sandwiches and salads made with local ingredients.
From there, she went to the University of Cape Town for a session with 50 high school students. They are from disadvantaged backgrounds but have shown academic potential.
Mrs. Obama arranged for them to spend the day at the university so they could envision themselves attending classes there one day. She said they shouldn’t look at the university as a foreign place.
“Getting into a school like this isn’t some kind of magical process,” the first lady said. “There is no magic dust that helps students succeed. Nowadays, it is really about how hard you are willing to work.” Mrs. Obama has been traveling with several family members, including daughters Malia and Sasha; her mother, Marian Robinson; and a niece and nephew. President Barack Obama stayed in Washington.
The first lady and her entourage arrived in South Africa late Monday and were to fly to Botswana on Friday. The visits are her first to either country.
