Located at Alice in the Eastern Cape, the institution started as the South African Native College before becoming the University of Fort Hare. It was the principal institution of higher education for Africans from 1916 to 1959 from across Southern Africa and beyond. Fort Hare alumni have played leading parts in struggles for independence and freedom and in post-liberation governments. In 1959, it was subsumed by the apartheid system, but became part of the democratic South Africa’s higher education system.