When journalist Lebo Diseko — born a year after the June 16 Soweto revolt — set out to write a book exploring the impact of that history on her family, she did not expect to encounter deep trauma, become immersed in powerful family bonds, or begin a renewed process of healing.
In The House at 6001, her memoir of the day that became the start of the Soweto uprising, Diseko recounts how that watershed moment reverberated through her family home in Orlando East. She traces the intertwined lives of her parents, aunts and uncles who gathered, organised and resisted within the walls of their house.
Speaking to the Sunday Times from London, where she is based, Diseko said she had not deliberately set out to tell the June 16 story. Instead, the memoir emerged during a year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 2023, when she enrolled in a narrative nonfiction writing class.
“It was around halfway through the year when I realised that all my essays dealt in some way with themes of exile, and the price paid for freedom. Juxtaposed with these were the recurrent themes of love, youth and resilience. The one place that typified that was my grandparents’ home in Soweto’s Orlando East. Once I connected these dots I knew I wanted to explore all of this further,” she said.
Diseko has spent almost two decades reporting for the BBC.
Diseko’s parents — journalist Mathe Diseko and school teacher Joyce Mxakato — met in their early 20s when they were attending covert political meetings. They were both targeted by the security forces at different times when they fell in love and moved into the family home at 6001
“A few years ago I would have said I chose journalism because I love speaking to people and telling stories, and the performance aspect of broadcasting is also something I enjoy. While that is true, I realise now that everyone in my generation of our family has chosen a career that in one way or another continues the legacy of the fight for freedom.
“My uncle [Nate Diseko] was a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail and covered the events of June 16 and the subsequent months of uprising in Soweto. He died [in 1991] before we returned from exile, but in The House at 6001 I reflect on the conversations I wish I could have had with him as I researched and wrote the book,” she said.
One of the book’s central themes is what happens when people revisit old wounds.
“People put things far from reach in their minds for a reason. As Murphy Morobe [a key figure from the anti-apartheid movement] told me, remembering too much can be a hindrance.”
Yet it was through exploring the trauma of others that she came to understand how events that unfolded before she was born shaped her life.
“Without giving any spoilers, I was able to get my dad’s security files declassified by making a Paia [Promotion of Access to Information Act] request. It was through this that I learnt a lot about his role as a student leader, and the events that led him to becoming a wanted man. He was very much a part of this process, and it was a profound experience — one which I’m still processing.”
I had always known my mum was driven by the desire for justice, but I realised in writing this that perhaps her bigger motivation in life is love — for her people, for her country, for her family and for me
— Lebo Diseko
Diseko’s parents — journalist Mathe Diseko and school teacher Joyce Mxakato — met in their early 20s when they were attending covert political meetings. They were both targeted by the security forces at different times when they fell in love and moved into the family home at 6001.
Their relationship survived long-distance as Mathe fled into exile in Botswana, where they got married. He later moved to England and for the first two years of her life, Diseko lived with her mother at 6001, surrounded by her grandparents, aunts and uncles — among them Amos and Rebecca Diseko, Nat and Ohara Diseko and Ohara’s sister Brigitte Mabandla and her dad’s oldest friend, fellow activist Kgotsi Andrew Molotsane.
“I had always known my mum was driven by the desire for justice, but I realised in writing this that perhaps her bigger motivation in life is love — for her people, for her country, for her family and for me.”
Her family remained steadfastly supportive throughout the writing process, Diseko said.
“They championed and encouraged me even when they were tired of answering my questions and I’m incredibly appreciative and grateful for how they loved me through it.”
Drawing on newly unsealed government documents, interviews and her own journey back through family history, Diseko revisits both her past and the house that stood at its centre.
“I believe that it is only through reckoning with what was done to us that we can clean these wounds properly, tend to them, and heal. I am incredibly honoured that my book may form a small part of those conversations.”
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