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Harlem in South Africa reclaims its legacy

Andrew Meldrum

Women celebrate as Sophiatown's residents reclaimed South Africa's multicultural hub. — PHOTO: AP

Pretoria: A township once dubbed the Harlem of South Africa has been given its old name back, 50 years after it was wiped off the map by apartheid.

Once a cultural hub that was home to musicians such as Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, Sophiatown has been celebrated in books, films and a hit musical. But in 1955 the apartheid regime moved all non-whites out of the area and razed their homes. The destruction of Sophiatown came to represent some of the worst excesses of the white minority regime.

Sophiatown's scattered residents reclaimed their old stomping ground on Saturday with music, dancing and a boisterous parade.

On the western edge of Johannesburg, Sophiatown was famous in the 1940s and 1950s as one of the few places where blacks, whites and Asians owned homes and businesses side by side.

The lively neighbourhood was the home of South Africa's burgeoning jazz and multiracial arts scene.

The tightly packed community, where shebeens (after hours nightclubs) and churches sat cheek by jowl, produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians and gangsters.

The African National Congress fought the plans to remove black people from Sophiatown. But on a rainy morning in 1955, about 2,000 policemen armed with guns and clubs moved into its streets. The bustling neighbourhood was flattened and an anodyne white suburb, named Triomf, emerged from the rubble.

``Triomf meant the victory of white supremacy,'' Johannesburg's mayor, Amos Masondo, told more than 500 persons gathered at the heart of Sophiatown. ``[But] Sophiatown was never erased from the hearts and minds of its people.'' —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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