Alexandra
Township, near Johannesburg ... has become a running sore of evil and
a place where the King's Writ runs with difficulty. All
the toughs and roughs and criminals congregate there.
Deneys Reitz, Minister of Native Affairs, 1942.2

Introduction

In the 1930s in South Africa, municipalities, provincial and national
levels of government increasingly turned their attention to the
problem of African urbanisation which to that point had not been
tightly
controlled. Slum clearance legislation was passed enabling municipalities
to set about clearing slum areas and relocating urban Africans
in townships, often well away from white settlement. In Johannesburg
officials were additionally concerned with several freehold townships
situated to the west and north of the city, where Africans had
the
legal right to own property. Once Johannesburg's slums were cleared
beginning in 1934, attention was turned to the western freehold
townships of Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare and to Alexandra
Township
located to the north but outside the municipal boundaries. Alexandra,
in particular, concerned many whites as it was 'uncontrolled' meaning
that no white municipality had ultimate authority over the township.
Between 1935 and 1945 there was an active campaign
led by the North-Eastern Districts Protection League (NEDPL)
to have the township removed. By 1942 the campaign had succeeded
to
the point
that the Johannesburg City Council (JCC) voted to spend taxpayer
money to have the township removed. Although Alexandra survived,
this campaign further demonstrates that it was not the National
Party (NP), the architects of apartheid, who first advocated
forced removals.
This article examines the position of Alexandra Township in
the 1930s and 1940s, and the attacks on and defence of its
continued
existence.

While white protesters, the JCC and government officials cried
out against South Africa's 'number-one problem township',
failures in
the municipal control and development in the townships of
the western areas of Johannesburg were submerged.3 White discourses
depicted
Alexandra as 'a running sore of evil', 'the Mecca of Native
Scum', and during World War II as 'a main Nazi propaganda
and
plotting
centre'.4 These images of Alexandra were used to contrast
the township with
all aspects of white South African 'civilisation'. The vehemence
in the language of protest was calculated to convey the urgent
need for the township's closure and the removal of its inhabitants
away
from white residential areas. In fact there was a strong
lobby to promote the elimination of all black settlements to
the
north of
Johannesburg which was viewed as the city's 'only outlet
for growth',5 and was an area inhabited by affluent whites.
Many
whites who lived
near Alexandra claimed to be fearful of increased crime,
disease and traffic which they associated with the rapidly
growing
township. Deon van Tender has shown that similar arguments
about the potential
health and crime threats of Sophiatown and the other black
townships in western Johannesburg were used by those who
wished to relocate
all blacks in the Johannesburg area to the southwest, well
away from the residences of whites.

As costs for black labour would be much greater if Alexandra's
residents were relocated to the southwest of Johannesburg,
the motivations
of the NEDPL and affiliated ratepayer and United Party
organisations must be examined closely. Elimination of the
township did
not serve the overall economic needs of the white communities
in
the northern suburbs, and if expansion of Johannesburg
to the north continued, there would be a need for more,
not
less,
labour. Furthermore,
industrial expansion to the north, which began during World
War II, would place even greater demands on the labour
in the future.
There
were some commentators that suggested removing Alexandra
residents to a new township located further away from Johannesburg
to
the north, but the majority of Alexandra's detractors did
not support
or promote
this scheme.

Some
who opposed Alexandra's continued existence bought property surrounding
the township hoping to capitalise
on land purchases
once it was removed. As Frederick Cooper suggests, 'The
fact that space
acquires a commercial value exposes it to the tension
between the possibility for particular capitalists to profit
by
developing new resources and the profits to be gained
by restricting
access to resources.'7
Following Cooper, it can be argued that black slums represented
a form of social life that dominant classes (in this
case, white),
conscious of their modernity, did not want to see. The
black influx of the 1930s and 1940s undermined white
images of
the city and
sense
of urban orderliness. Evidence submitted in 1942 by the
Alexandra Standholders' Protection and Vigilance Association
(ASPVA),
an association of township property owners, supports
the view that
land speculators
lay behind some of the agitation against Alexandra. The
ASPVA stated that members of the NEDPL consisted 'mainly
of land-owners
and
land speculators who hold property adjoining Alexandra
Township' who would
benefit by opening up the area for European settlement.8
This assessment was also supported by Ellen Hellmann
in an article
on the agitation
for Alexandra's removal. Alfred Hoernle when chairman
of the Alexandra Health Committee that provided local services,
noted
that the white
population on Alexandra's borders remained thin in 1943,
but that land speculation anticipating further white
residential
expansion
in the area had driven up property values. In addition,
speculative township developments to the north of Alexandra
were trying
to attract wealthy buyers seeking country residences
readily accessible
to Johannesburg
by car.

Finally, Alexandra's location far away from other areas
of black
settlement near Johannesburg, produced paranoia among
some whites that blacks could swamp them in a revolt.
One northern
suburbs
commentator exemplified this view in the late 1930s:

If
Alexandra remains where it is, with its present or increased population
the time will come when they
will
revolt not
only secretly as now
but openly. This should be anticipated and the difficulty
that would arise from Johannesburg having two quarters
from which
such risings
could come has to be recognised.

Alexandra Township
is located 13 kilometers from central Johannesburg and has a long
and storied
history. Founded
in 1912 before
the Native Land Act of 1913 restricted freehold
rights for urban Africans,
and
located outside Johannesburg's municipal boundaries,
Alexandra became a location of status where some
urban black South
Africans could
own property. Until well into the 1950s Alexandra
was also exempt from many regulations that applied
to other
black
settlements. People did not need passes or special
permits to stay in Alexandra,
though
they did require them to work in Johannesburg.
Being outside Johannesburg's
municipal authority meant that Alexandra fell under
the jurisdiction of the Transvaal Province. In
the absence
of municipal control,
Alexandra had a Health Committee (AHC) from 1916
- initially chaired by a white
man, but with an elected local black majority membership.
Although the African majority was removed in 1929
due to lack of development
in the provision of basic amenities, the AHC remained
the local authority technically responsible for
Alexandra. Because of
the poor economic
circumstances of most residents, the AHC was limited
in
its powers to effect many improvements.

After Alexandra opened for settlement by Africans
and Coloureds, the population grew steadily to
reach an
estimated 1 500
living on 400-500 lots by February 1918. From
the 1920s the population
expanded
more rapidly and in 1930 there were about 8 000
Africans and 600 coloureds resident there. Alexandra's
population
boomed
from 8
000-10 000 in 1932 to an estimated 45 000-50
000 in 1940 and at least 80
000 by the late 1940s.12 Rapid population growth
contributed greatly to protests from white residents
of Johannesburg's
northern suburbs
who began to agitate for the township's removal
in the mid-1930s.

The negative characterisation of Alexandra can
be traced back to at least 1919. In that year
42 residents
of
Wynberg petitioned
the police
about the 'unbearable state of affairs ...
owing to the proximity of the Alexandra Native
Location',
which
was
notorious as
'a shelter for a large number of Native Loafers
and Crooks'. The
petition
claimed Africans caused 'a great deal of thieving
and damage, and frequently
much danger to the womenfolk alone during the
day'. The petitioners thought it unfair that
they should
be subjected
to constant
theft and to 'a crowd of drunken kaffirs' each
weekend.13 At this stage,
though, protesters limited demands to increased
police protection.

The
first official inquiries into affairs in Alexandra
were prompted by complaints of
township property
owners over treatment
during
raids for African beer. Inquiries in 1916
and 1921 largely vindicated the
police, with the latter investigation leading
to closer cooperation between standholders
and police
over the
control of liquor
in the township.14 These inquiries also referred
to the majority of residents
as 'law-abiding' and 'respectable'. Even
though official discourse conceded 'respectable' status
to property
owners in Alexandra,
a Native Affairs Department (NAD) internal
memorandum of 1925 evidenced an emerging
conception of Alexandra
as a
'dangerous menace' to
Johannesburg.15
Although official language derided the existence
of 'uncontrolled' Alexandra, in practice
in the 1930s and 1940s, the NAD,
provincial administration and JCC did little
more than
appoint numerous
committees of inquiry and hold private conferences
on the future
of Alexandra.
The deterioration of conditions caused by
the township's rapid population growth was linked
with wider problems
of municipal
expansion and
health in peri-urban areas by the second
half of the 1930s. As a result, Alexandra featured
prominently
in reports
of the Johannesburg
and Germiston Boundaries (Feetham) Commission
and the
Union Department of Public Health's Committee
on Health and Sanitation
in Peri-urban
Areas (Thornton Committee), which appeared
in 1937 and 1939 respectively. In addition
the Native
Affairs
Commission
investigated
local administration
in 1940. Evidence submitted to these bodies,
and their subsequent reports, provide useful
insight
into varying
white opinions
over the future of Alexandra Township. Yet,
all of these inquiries counselled
against the incorporation of the township
into the Johannesburg municipality
and supported the retention of Alexandra,
although they conceded that many improvements were needed.

The Feetham Commission and the Thornton
Committee both heard evidence about living
conditions,
social improvements
and
the relative risk
of Alexandra to white settlement in and
around Johannesburg. Both reports rejected
the proposal
that Alexandra
should be incorporated
by the JCC. This was based on the grounds
that adequate compensation would not be
paid to
Alexandra standholders,
there was insufficient
municipal accommodation available and the
proposition would be too costly and inefficient.
While
it was conceded that
there were
problems
in Alexandra, these were thought to be
no worse than what pertained in municipal
townships.
Indeed, the
JCC's relatively
poor record
of township administration was generally
cited
as an argument against incorporation.

Despite
the views of the commissions the provincial administration
continued
to hope that the JCC
would take over the township.
The NAD also thought that this arrangement
would be the best solution,
but hesitated due to standholder opposition
in Alexandra, the JCC's inability to
pay for needed
improvements
and difficulties surrounding
the legal status of the township. The
NAD did not itself want
to take responsibility either and throughout
the 1930s and early 1940s
tried to convince the Transvaal Province
to fulfil its role as the ultimate
authority over
Alexandra.
The result
was
a refusal
of any
state body to make itself directly
accountable for and to attempt to uplift Alexandra.
Although Alexandra survived state indifference
and removal campaigns, the tenacity
of the protests led
by many who
were United Party
supporters demonstrates clearly the
strength of racial attitudes and the
spatial
apartheid wishes of the majority of
white South Africans in the 1930s and
early 1940s.
African
townships were
necessary for the
housing
of black South African workers, but
residents of more affluent white areas
did not want
townships located
anywhere near
them.
Thus many
urged for the removal of Alexandra's
residents to the townships to the southwest
of Johannesburg.
A
similar
process of
agitation for
the removal of the freehold townships
of Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare
in
Johannesburg's western
areas took place
at about the
same time.

In 1944 the JCC developed a ten-year
plan for the removal of the western
townships.
However
as a
result of World
War II
and lack
of finances to build the necessary
housing required for relocation of
residents, the council was unable
to implement the policy. In 1954 the NP
government passed
legislation to undertake
the removal of
the western townships.16 The NP began
to address Alexandra's position in
1955 and
again in 1962,
with
some residents
being removed and
hostels built for temporary migrant
workers, but by 1979 Alexandra's
permanent existence
was ensured.

A
number of historians of South Africa, following M W Swanson,
have commented
on the pervasiveness
of a
'sanitation
syndrome'
discourse
in white characterisations of the
causes of urban black disease.
Through the
use of this
environmentalist
discourse
that labelled
urban slums and the black residents
in them as transmitters of deadly
diseases, officials
legitimated
policies
of removal to their
white
constituencies. These policies
did not
solve problems of urban poverty,
but sought to
move them out of
sight and,
for a time,
out of mind.
As white settlement expanded outwards
from major urban centres in South
Africa after
1900, it
was increasingly
difficult
to hide slums
completely from white view.

Alexandra,
like other peri-urban areas, came under close scrutiny
due to its
'uncontrolled' nature
as seen by
the Johannesburg
municipality and many local residents.
All
over South Africa attempts were
made to order and control African
urbanisation,
particularly from the 1920s onwards.
In her study of Brakpan,
Hilary Sapire
shows how
local whites in the 1920s were
fearful of epidemics and attacks
on white
women and property as a result
of uncontrolled settlements near
the
town. They were
able to apply provisions
in the Urban Areas
Act of
1923 to clear settlements which
it made illegal.17 Alexandra,
however, was protected
from the
Act's provisions. Johannesburg,
as Sue Parnell
has demonstrated, was able to
use provisions in the Slums Act to
clear
its slum
areas during the
1930s
which led
many displaced
people to move into Alexandra,
which lay outside of the control
of the
municipality, though others moved
into the western
areas
townships leading to
overcrowding there as well.18
While many other
black settlements on the Rand
and in other areas of South Africa
were declared illegal from the
1920s through
the 1940s,
Alexandra's status
was legally
upheld.
Alexandra's
unique position as a privately
owned township outside white
municipal control meant that
it was an issue
at each level of the white state
- municipal, provincial and national.

The history of Alexandra throughout
the segregation period differed
from other
Rand urban areas,
but remained at
the core of official
and popular discussions about
the organisation of black
urban existence.
The Transvaal
provincial administration
would
not upgrade Alexandra's
status, refusing to allow
a village council to be formed
as it determined that the
Local Government Ordinance only allowed
for
a white franchise
on local councils. Alexandra
increasingly became a legal
headache
and, as
its
tenant population
continued to rise,
as did that
of white settlements in Johannesburg's
north, white officials became
concerned
about the township's status
and future development. As
no authority
would
seriously countenance
the idea of
local self-government,
advocates of tighter state
control and of removal argued
for
greater state
intervention. With the rejuvenation
of the Union's NAD between
1924
and 1927 and
its
strengthened position after
the passage
of the 1927
Native Administration Act,
the provincial administration
thought
it suitable
to investigate the state
of Alexandra's administration
and the future of the township.20
The Young Committee reported
in 1929 and rejected the
current position of the
Transvaal provincial administration
and
the
NAD
that Alexandra should be
incorporated into the Johannesburg
municipality.
The
report ran counter to an
emerging official ideology
that did
not allow for
urban Africans
to govern themselves, thus
the report was suppressed
until
it
appeared
in evidence
to the Feetham
Commission of 1936-37.
By that time,
agitation
for the township's removal
had begun, though acceptance
of 'responsible'
black involvement
in local affairs
under white
guidance was emerging
within the NAD.

In Johannesburg, liberal interests
and state imperatives clashed
repeatedly over
the future
of African settlements
in the area.
This was especially true
in the cases of Sophiatown, Martindale
and Newclare,
as well as with 'uncontrolled'
Alexandra. Liberals viewed
these
townships as
the
places where
paternalist policies
of gradual
advancement of
blacks towards white civilisation
could be tested. Many whites,
however, considered
them nothing
more than filthy
slums that
were overcrowded,
disease-ridden, havens
for criminals and needed elimination.

From
the late 1920s through the 1950s, there was
much discussion on the
future of Alexandra
Township.
From
these debates,
two schools of thought
emerged. The first, fuelled
by small
groups
of activists,
advocated abolition of
the township, or at least
its incorporation
into Johannesburg
municipality, which
could lead to removal.
Underlying this argument,
however, was the
material
aim of moving the township
so that property values
would rise in the northern
suburbs.
The second
view encouraged
expenditure
on the improvement
of conditions.
Supporters
of improvement defended
Alexandra on the grounds
of a moral commitment
to
Africans,
particularly
property owners,
who
in terms of segregationist
language should be free
to 'develop
along their own lines'.
In addition, removal
would severely
limit
labour
supplies
to the northern
suburbs.
White liberals, many
affiliated to the South
African Institute
of Race
Relations
(SAIRR),
and missionary
groups were the primary proponents of the second
view.

Discussions
on Alexandra took place within state
bodies and
among the
white public.
Members of
the latter hoped
to prompt
the former
into direct action.
Much of the public commentary
on conditions
in Alexandra
was aired in the
local white
English press,
notably the
Star and the Rand Daily
Mail. The official
debate on Alexandra
took
place mainly
in committees and commissions
of inquiry.
Although controlled
by whites, the debates
also involved
African and coloured
stand-holders, particularly
those on the
AHC.

The
battle waged over the future of Alexandra
between
1935 and
1945 is,
perhaps, the
most interesting
of white debates on African
settlement
in Rand urban areas
because
of its unique status.
Finally, Alexandra
was, for many
whites, a
symbol of pre-segregationist
thoughtlessness
by white officials.
They read Alexandra's
1930s
and 1940s
situation as 'a
black
island in a
white sea'
back into
the early 1910s
and 1920s, ignoring
Alexandra's original
distance from
white suburbs. This
distortion of
the historical
record allowed opponents
of Alexandra to legitimate
their
calls for removal.

Concentration
on Alexandra diverted
some attention
from the equally
poor, or even
worse, conditions
that existed
in Johannesburg's
own townships,
though the JCC turned attention
to
slum clearance
in
the 1930s and to
possible relocation
of its black
townships in the
1940s. However,
the same focus on
JCC-administered
townships would
demonstrate that poor and overcrowded
Alexandra was better
off than those
townships run by
the wealthier
city. This
would
evidence municipal
failure to control
black urban
settlements. Johannesburg
Native Commissioner
J M Brink argued
in
1940 that the comparisons
between
the
Western Areas and
Alexandra did not
matter,
as 'two wrongs
do not make
one right'. However,
he also concluded
that conditions
must be worse in Alexandra
because
of its
large
population
and its 'uncontrolled nature'.21 The
derision aimed
at Alexandra
in white
discourse conveniently
ignored that
improvements
had taken place
despite state and
municipal
indifference.

Motions
for the removal of Alexandra
came
before the JCC
on several
occasions in
the decade
from 1935 onwards.
Early
motions
failed,
but in 1942 the
JCC voted to
have Alexandra
removed
if the
provincial
and Union
governments would
each pay one-third
of the cost.
This proposal was a
very expensive
one considering
it was
made in the
middle of World
War II and that
the cost
would be
far more
than
Johannesburg
was spending on improvements
to
its own locations
and townships.
The success of
the
anti-Alexandra
lobby was clear
as the
JCC voted to
support and partially
finance
relocation
of
a township
which
fell outside
its borders, two years
before passing
plans
for removal
of its own Western
Areas Townships.
The Union government, however, refused
to consider
removal
while the war
was in progress.22
The issue was
held over until
the end of the
war when
the government
determined that
Alexandra would
not be removed
until further
investigations had been carried
out.

The JCC and white
protest against
Alexandra 1935-38

Letters
protesting against Alexandra
were sent
intermittently to police
and government
officials
in the
1920s and early
1930s. However,
by the
mid-1930s several
ratepayer
associations from the northern
suburbs
of Johannesburg
began actively
agitating
for eradication
of the
township. They cited
inadequate
control
over
health
matters and insufficient
police
protection
as the
main reasons
why removal
was necessary.23
Ratepayer
groups contended that
Alexandra
should be removed
for the
benefit of
all
concerned,