Mahatma Gandhi has been honoured here alongside South African anti-apartheid heroes Albert Luthuli and Archbishop Dennis Hurley for fighting injustice while advocating peaceful opposition to the racial segregation system in the country.
The three were honoured by a centre which provides healthcare, meals and sanctuary to the needy. A section of the Denis Hurley Centre was named the Gandhi-Luthuli?Peace Hall in honour of the three men who fought against injustice while advocating peaceful opposition to apartheid during a ceremony on Monday.
The centre is in the heart of Durban, surrounded by the Juma Masjid, <g data-gr-id="16">Emannuel</g> Cathedral and Victoria Street market, all established by the first Indian settlers who arrived the in 1860 as indentured sugar cane farm labourers.
Various speakers acknowledged Gandhi as having started the battle during his tenure in South Africa at the turn of the last <g data-gr-id="18">century,</g> when he mobilised South Africans to peacefully protest against discriminatory laws.
Former African National Congress president Albert Luthuli, who was also the first recipient on the African continent of the Nobel Peace Prize, had decried apartheid as being degrading to all those who engaged in it, including the oppressors in the minority white government of the time.