Sophiatown

I recently stumbled across a surprising fact about the Apartheid forced removals, which seems to have gotten lost in the cracks. Through the Group Areas Act the nationalist government implemented its grand plan of spatial apartheid. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes. Many witnessed their lives being bulldozed before being shunted to townships on the outskirts of the city.

Two mixed race communities stand as symbols to this destruction: District Six in Cape Town and Sophiatown in Johannesburg. The forced removals touched everyone. Until recently, I thought it was something that only happened to black african people from Sophiatown. The truth is much closer to home.

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