Forced removals: The destruction of Sophiatown

Waiting for the truck. Sophiatown Forced removals.© Jurgen Schadeberg

Sophiatown was a uniquely African town. It was one of very few places where Africans had been able to buy land before the 1923 Urban Areas Act was passed. It was overcrowded, ramshackle and unsanitary but it was home to a vibrant community. The residents did not want to be moved (in terms of the new Group Areas Act) to make way for a new ‘white' suburb of Triomf. Removals, the women argued, would destabilise their already poverty-stricken family life. Secondly, as informal wage earners (beer brewing, hawking fruit and running shebeens, for example, were a means of survival) they stood to lose their livelihood. If this and other informal employment was restricted and relocation removed their customer base, the women and their families faced an uphill battle to survive.

The destruction of Sophiatown was strenuously resisted. The residents vowed they would not move and organised a protest committee, backed by the ANC and the FSAW. But the authorities countered with a show of force that the residents could not match and resistance fizzled out. However, because African women were so traumatised by the incident, it had a politicising effect on them and many joined the ranks of the ANCWL and FSAW. The Sophiatown branches of these organisations were particularly strong during the 1950's.