The Old Location was the area west of central Windhoek where most Black residents of the city lived until 1959, when the apartheid authorities forced them out to make way for white suburbs. Eleven people died in the protests against the move; today only the cemetery and a small monument remain.
The cemetery is a quiet, dusty patch on what is now the suburb of Hochland Park. A plaque records the names of those killed in the 1959 Old Location Uprising — a moment Namibians remember as the start of organised resistance to colonial rule. It is the spiritual counterpoint to the official Independence Memorial Museum in the city centre.