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SOPHIATOWN UNWRAPPEDHistory

Sophiatown was originally part of the Waterfall farm. Over time it included the neighbouring areas of Martindale and Newclare. It was purchased by a speculator, Hermann Tobiansky, in 1897. He acquired 237 acres four miles or so west of the centre of Johannesburg. The private leasehold township was surveyed in 1903 and divided into almost 1700 small stands. The township was named after Tobiansky's wife, Sophia, and some of the streets were named after his children Toby, Gerty, Bertha and Victoria. Before the enactment of the Natives Land Act, 1913, black South Africans had freehold rights, and they bought properties in the suburb. The distance from the city centre was seen as disadvantageous and after the City of Johannesburg built a sewage plant nearby, the area seemed even less attractive. Because of these and other reasons most of the whites had moved out by 1920, leaving behind a vibrant multi-racial community. By the late 1940s Sophiatown had a population of nearly 54 000 Black Africans, 3 000 Coloureds, 1 500 Indians and 686 Chinese.

Forcefully removals

As neighbouring white working-class areas, such as Westdene and Newlands, developed adjacent to Sophiatown, the perception arose that the suburb was too close to white suburbia. From 1944 onwards, the Johannesburg City Council planned to move the black population out of the Western Areas, including Sophiatown. After the election victory of the National Party in 1948, relocation plans were debated at the level of national politics. Under the Immorality Amendment Act, No 21 of 1950, people of mixed races could not reside together, which made it possible for the government to segregate the different races.

When the removals scheme was promulgated, Sophiatown residents united to protest against the forced removals, creating the slogan "Ons dak nie, ons phola hier" (we won't move). Father Trevor Huddleston, Nelson Mandela, Helen Joseph and Ruth First played an important role by becoming involved in the resistance. On 9 February 1955, 2 000 policemen, armed with handguns, rifles and clubs known as knobkierries, forcefully moved the black families of Sophiatown to Meadowlands, Soweto. Other ethnic groups were also moved: Coloured people moved to Eldorado Park in the south of Johannesburg; the Indian community moved to Lenasia; and the Chinese people moved to central Johannesburg. Over the next eight years Sophiatown was flattened and removed from the maps of Johannesburg.

Triomf

After the forced removals and demolition, carried out under the Natives Resettlement Act of 1954, the area was rezoned for whites only and renamed 'Triomf —Afrikaans for Triumph—by the government. The social engineers of apartheid tried to create a suburb for the white working class. In the end it turned out that Triomf became a suburb mainly for poor white Afrikaners. This just showed how apartheid failed even though it was ideologically designed to benefit.

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Restoration of the name Sophiatown

The Johannesburg City Council took the decision in 1997 to reinstate the old name Sophiatown for the suburb. On 11 February 2006, the process finally came to fruition when Mayor Amos Mosondo changed the name of Triomf back to Sophiatown.

Geography and geology

Sophiatown is located on one of Johannesburg's ridges called Melville Koppies. Melville Koppies lies on the Kaapvaal craton, which dates from three billion years ago. The Koppies lie at the base of lithified sediments in the form of conglomerate, quartzite, shale, and siltstone. It represents the first sea shores and shallow beds of an ancient sea.

It also forms part of the lowest level of one of the world's most well-known geological features, the Witwatersrand Supergroup. Several fairly narrow layers of gravel, deposited quite late in the sequence, and bearing heavy elements, made the Witwatersrand Supergroup famous. These are the gold-bearing conglomerates of the main reefs. Melville Koppies represents in microcosm most of the features of the Witwatersrand Supergroup. What it does not have is gold-bearing rock. The gold occurs millions of years later, and several kilometres higher up, in the sequence.

The Melville Koppies Nature Reserve is a Johannesburg City Heritage Site. In the last 1 000 years, Iron Age immigrants arrived and remains of their kraal walls can be found in the area.

Culture

Early life in Sophiatown

Sophiatown, unlike other townships in South Africa, was a freehold township, which meant that it was one of the rare places in South African urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land. This was land that never belonged to the Johannesburg municipality, and so it never developed like municipal "matchbox" houses, built row upon row, with the same uniformity and lack of character. 

The houses were built according to people's ability to pay, tastes, and cultural background. Some houses were built of brick and had four or more rooms; some were much smaller. Others were built like homes in the rural areas;

others still were single room shacks put together with corrugated iron and scrap sheet metal.

The majority of the families living in Sophiatown were tenants and sub-tenants. Eight or nine people lived in a single room and the houses hid backyards full of shanties built of cardboard and flattened kerosene cans, since many black property owners in Sophiatown were poor. In order to pay back the mortgages on their properties, they had to take in paying tenants.

Sophiatown residents had a determination to construct a respectable lifestyle in the shadow of a state that was actively hostile to such ambitions. A respectable lifestyle rested on the three pillars of religious devotion, reverence for formal education and a desire for law and order.

People struggled to survive together, and a rich culture based on shebeens (informal and mostly illegal pubs), mbaqanga music and beer-brewing developed. The shebeens were one

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of the main forms of entertainment. People came to the shebeens not only for skokiaan or baberton (illegally self-made alcoholic beverages), but to talk about their daily worries, their political ideas and their fears and hopes. In these shebeens the politicians tried to influence others and get them to conform to their form of thinking. If one disagreed he immediately became suspect and was classified as a police informer.

These two conflicting images of Sophiatown stand side by side - the romantic vision of a unique community juxtaposed with a seedy and violent township with dangers lurking at every corner.

Activity: Reading Comprehension After having read the text above, answer the questions that follow;

1. After whom was the township named? (1)Answer: After Tobiansky’s wife2. Name four street named after some of Tobiansky’s children. (4)Answer: Toby, Gerty, Bertha and Victoria3. What made the township less attractive? Quote a phrase from the text to support your answer.

(2)Answer: “a sewage plant was build nearby”4. List where each ethnic group was moved to. (3)Answer: Coloured people Eldorado Park

Indian people LenasiaChinese people Central JHB

5. What eventually happened to Sophiatown once all the people were forcefully removed? Quote a sentence from the text to support your answer. (2)Answer: “flattened and removed from the map of Jhb.”6. Once the area was rezoned for White people, what was the new area called? (2)Answer: Triomf7. When and by whom was the name Sophiatown reinstated? (2)Answer: 11 February 2006 by Mayor Amos Mosondo8. Sophiatown neighbourhood’s houses look different from those of the normal municipality houses. Name three factors that effected the way they looks/were constructed. (3)Answer: The ability to pay

The taste of the ownerThe cultural background

9. What three cultural developments arised in Sophiatown that were a form of entertainment too? (3)

Answer: Shebeens, Mbaqanga Music and Beer-brewing

10. What was the contradictory descriptions of Sophiatown? Quote a sentence to motivate your answer. (2)

Answer: “the romantic vision of a unique community juxtaposed with a seedy and violent township with dangers lurking at every corner.”

Grand Total: 24 Marks

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Let us continue looking through the looking glass at Sophiatown

Arts, Culture, Crime and Gangsterism Reading Study: Read the following paragraphs and answer the questions to follow.

Arts and literature: Music and culture as forms of resistance

Music

Music was a central feature of the urban culture that developed in Johannesburg and in Sophiatown in particular. It was here that the most important developments in indigenous jazz took place.

Early beginnings

In the 1920s and 1930s the urban culture of the slumyards, centred in Doornfontein in Johannesburg, was known as marabi, possibly derived from the township of Marabastad in Pretoria. Marabi reflected the way of life of the people living in the slumyards. It was centred on beer-brewing and shebeens. The marabi dance parties became centres of community life and gave the African working classes a new sense of identity. This is how Wilson "King Force" Silgee, a famous jazz saxophonist, described Marabi:

Marabi: that was the environment. It was either organ but mostly piano. You get there, you pay your 10 cents. You get your share of whatever concoction there is - and you dance. It used to start from Friday night right through to Sunday evening.

Music was fundamental to the new culture of the yards. It created the vivacity and the energy of the shebeen parties. The sound of marabi music was original and improvisational.

The cultural process was somehow intensified in Sophiatown, as in Soho, the Greenwich Village, the Quartier Latin or Kreuzberg.

It was akin to what Harlem was to New York in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and is sometimes referred to as the Sophiatown renaissance.

The musical King Kong, sponsored by the Union of South African Artists, is described as the ultimate achievement and final flowering of Sophiatown multi-racial cultural exploits in the 1950s. King Kong was a Sophiatown legend who gained popularity as a famous boxer, notorious extrovert, a bum and a brawler. 

Play video: King Kong Musical

The King Kong musical depicted the street life, the illicit shebeens, the violence, and something approximating the music of the township: jazz, penny whistles and the work songs of the black miners.

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When King Kong premiered in Johannesburg, Miriam Makeba the vocalist of the Manhattan Brothers, played in the female lead role. The musical later went to London's West End for two years.

One of the boys, Hugh Masekela at St Peter's School, told Father Huddleston of his discovery of the music of Louis Armstrong. Huddleston found a trumpet for him and as the interest in making music caught on among the other boys, the Huddleston Jazz Band was formed. Hugh Masekela did not stay very long in Sophiatown. He was

in the orchestra of King Kong and then made his own international reputation.

Show video: Hugh Masekela: Grazing in the grass

Images of Sophiatown were initially built up in literature by a generation of South African writers: Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Es'kia Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, Todd Matshikiza, Nat Nakasa, Casey Motsisi and Lewis Nkosi who all lived in Sophiatown at various stages during the 1950s. They all shared certain elements of a common experience: education at St Peter's School and Fort Hare University, living in Sophiatown, working for Drum magazine, exile, banning under the Suppression of Communism Act and for many the writing of an autobiography.

Later, images of Sophiatown could be found in Nadine Gordimer's novels, Miriam Makeba's ghostwritten autobiography and Trevor Huddleston's Naught for your comfort.

Marlene van Niekerk's novel Triomf focuses on the suburb Triomf and recounts the monotonous daily lives of a family of poor white Afrikaners. The book has been turned into a movie also called "Triomf", which won the Best South African Movie award in 2008.

Crime and gangsterism

Crime and violence were a reality of urban life and culture in Sophiatown. The poverty, misery, violence and lawlessness of the city led to the growth of many gangs. Sections of society frowned on gangsterism as anti-social behaviour and gangsters like Kortboy and Don Mattera were despised by many as "anti-social".

After the Second World War, there was a large increase in the number of gangs in Sophiatown. Part of the reason for this was that there were about 20 000 African teenagers in the city who were not at school and did not have jobs. Township youths were unable to find jobs easily. Employers were reluctant to employ teenagers as they did not have any work experience, and many of them were not able to read or write. They also considered them to be undisciplined and weak.

In Johannesburg in the 1950s, crime was a day-to-day reality, and Sophiatown was the nucleus of all reef crimes. Gangsters were city-bred and spoke a mixture of Afrikaans and English, known as Tsotsi-taal. Some of the more well-known gangs in Sophiatown were the Russians, the Americans, the Gestapo, the Berliners and the Vultures. The names the Gestapo and the Berliners reflect their admiration for Hitler, whom they saw as some kind of hero, for taking on the whites of Europe. The best known gang from this period, and also best studied, was the Russians. They were a group of Basotho migrant workers who banded together in the

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absence of any effective law enforcement by either mine owners or the state. The primary goal of this gang was to protect members from the tsotsis and from other gangs of migrant workers, and to acquire and defend resources they found desirable - most notably women, jobs and the urban space necessary for the parties and staged fights that formed the bulk of their weekend entertainment.

One of the more successful community campaigns emerged in the early 1950s when informal policing initiatives known as the Civic Guards were mobilized to combat rising crime. This attempt to restore law and order attracted widespread support prior to a series of bloody clashes with the migrant criminal society from the poorer enclave of Newclare. This provided the state with an excuse to ban the Guard groups which they eyed with suspicion because of their ANC and Communist Party connections. These supposed arbiters of law and order engaged in a series of brutal street battles with members of the "Russians" gang in the early 1950s.

The representation of gangsters in the literature (Drum magazine) went through very different stages during the 1950s and early 1960s. The first representation is characterized by consistent condemnations of crime as an urban phenomenon that threatens the rural identity of tribal blacks. The second is almost a complete turn-around from the first, as gangsters are portrayed as urban survivors who are able to achieve a standard of living normally denied to blacks. The final period is an extended period of nostalgia for the shebeen culture that all but disappeared with the destruction of Sophiatown.

Reading StudyAnswers the following question that are based on the Arts, culture, crime and gangsterism paragraphs above.

1. What did the King Kong musical depict? Name three things. (3)Answer: Shebeens, violence and the township music2. Who was Hugh Masekela? Give a brief description of who he was. (5)Answer: One of the boys at Peter’s school Found his love of music Started with the trumpet Part of the Huddleston band Part of orchestra of King Kong International reputation3. What led to the growth of many gangs in Sophiatown? (4)Answer: Poverty, misery, violence and lawlessness4. What, according to you, does the phrase “nucleus of all reef crimes” mean? (4)Answer: A nucleus in a cell control everything and it can thus be said that the crime started and was controlled from out of Sophiatown. 5. What language is Tsotsi-taal? (2)Answer: Mixture of Afrikaans and English6. The Russians’ mail goal was to protect members from the tsotsis and from other

gangs of migrant workers, and to acquire and defend resources they found desirable. Name two of the things they protected. (2)

Answer: Women, jobs and the urban space necessary for the parties

(Grand Total: 20 Marks)

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Analysing the plot in Sophiatown

The term “plot” refers to the set of connected events upon which the play is based. It involves a pattern of relationships between the events and characters in the play. Something happens because of something else and so on. It also includes several dramatic structures moving the action in the play forward.

Understanding structural elements of a plot

A plot is a series of events that make up a story and is specific to each story. A plot structure, also called a dramatic structure, is the overall design or structure of a story and how the story elements are arranged.

To help you analyse the plot, it is important to understand what the structural elements of the plot are. Every story has a beginning or exposition, with something that leads to conflict in the middle, before it is resolved and the story concludes.

Now let us look at the definitions of each element to understand what they mean.

Exposition The exposition is the explanation (usually at the beginning of a story) of the events leading up to the start of the plot.

Inciting incident The first time we realise that all is not well. Something that sets off the conflict in the story.

Rising action The building up of conflict in the plot.

Conflict The struggle between characters, or between individuals and their circumstances.

Climax The highest point in the development of the conflict, the moment of greatest intensity and tension.

Final solution (dénouement) The final part of the story where everything is made clear.

Conclusion The way the story is rounded off.

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Structural Elements of Sophiatown

Exposition and inciting incident of conflict

Jakes sets the scene, describing the situation and conflict that the characters in the play are facing, that is, the forced removal from their homes. The incident that triggers the conflict between the characters is the arrival of Ruth. We see the first reactions of the other characters towards her. In terms of the story and plot, Ruth’s arrival sets in motion the struggle that the characters face. This struggle will remove them from the home and lives they know.

Conflict begins

In the play, Sophiatown, two distinct types of conflict can be identified, namely:1. Conflict between characters, for example between Mingus and Ruth, or Fahfee and Jakes, or Ruth and Jakes.2. Conflict between the characters and a situation, for example, the characters in the play face conflict in terms of the forced removals. We can also say that, in this play, the conflict is between the residents of Sophiatown and the apartheid government.

Rising action contributing to conflict and leading to climax

What builds up to the conflict between the main characters is how they, for example Jakes, Mingus and Fahfee, react to Ruth. Ruth also reacts to them and to life in Sophiatown. The conflict between the characters and their situation also contributes to the rising action. There are glimpses of resistance to the coming eviction through Fahfee. As the play proceeds and the time of the eviction draws closer, the tension rises.

ClimaxAct 2, Scene 5 and 6. The first evictions in Sophiatown are shown. The bulldozers have arrived to demolish Toby Street. It is clear the bulldozers will soon come to Gerty Street.

Falling action/final solution(Dénouement)

The police and bulldozers are about to arrive to demolish the house in Gerty Street. The characters are powerless to stop their eviction. Plans to resist this have failed.

Conclusion

In the last scene, the characters (except for Ruth, Princess and Charlie) remember the day their home was destroyed and they tell about this day from their point of view. Jakes tells us what happened to Ruth, Princess and Charlie. The song at the end conveys a mood of sadness and mourning for what was lost.

 

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Sophiatown ThemesAn era of great music, love and acceptance in a time full of so much hate and violence.

MusicAs the swing music culture grew in America so did Tsaba-Tsaba. Music was the centre of all social events in Sophiatown, as it is in most African cultures. Artists used their songs and music as a way to protest what was happening in the world around them. Many songs were written objecting to the force removals of the inhabitants of Sophiatown. Artists were highly respected and to be musically talented was probably one of the best things that could happen to an African person because that meant you might have an opportunity to travel overseas and leave the terrible violence and injustice happening in South Africa. Many great artists that we listen to today, first started performing in Sophiatown.

Listen to video: Pennywhistle and Guitar - The Sophia Town Stars, Nelson Makoka and Solomon Sibiya for African Frenzy

The Gangsters:Gangsters played a major role in the life of the average Sophiatown resident.Many gangsters had normal 9am – 5pm jobs during the day but at night and on weekends they did petty crimes to increase their weekly income.

Gangsters lived the good life. They had women and money at their disposal and the respect of many of the

Sophiatown residents.

One of the gangs, the Americans, became highly liked by township residents because they stole goods from rich white people and sold them to locals at a much cheaper price. Violence was inevitable. If you were a gangster, you often fought to kill members of other gangs. Some gangs were only formed so as to protect themselves from rivalry gangs.

Gangsters were inspired by American culture and movies. The gangsters spoke and acted in certain ways based of the ‘heroes’ depicted in the movies they watched. Some of the phrases coined in the 50’s are still used today as part of Kasi Taal.

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Shebeens:Pubs are the modern equivalent of shebeens, a place where people can meet, plan and discuss things whilst having a good time. It was illegal for Africans to purchase European liquor, so Shebeens became the place where Sophiatown locals and visitors came together to have a good time. Shebeens worked according to a ‘class system’, thus one would find that Shebeens catered mainly for the poorer Africans.

There were better shebeens that were run from people’s homes. The seating arrangements were much more comfortable; these shebeens normally had great performers and a different sort of people in the shebeen. Shebeen queens were the driving force behind all of this, as they ran the business from their homes. These women were wealthy and were well liked by the community. The ‘shebeen queens’ were dependant on a white people to supply them with alcohol, since it was illegal for Africans to buy European liquor.

The liquor was hidden in many different ways from hollow tables to household taps that poured out brandy and wine. There was always someone to look out for the police. If there were police in the area, a signal would be given so that all liquor would be hidden.

Drum Magazine:Drum magazine was created by Jim Bailey. Drum was a magazine that showed the other side of the South Africa from shebeens, jazz, gang violence and the cruelty against Africans.The drum staff were highly intelligent young men who had fun doing their job, but, who lived under the constant fear of the police. They lived fast and died young. Alcohol abuse was a major problem amongst the Drum magazine’s staff.

Apartheid:There was a constant fear amongst the Sophiatown residence, of the police and of what they might do to you. Many people were arrested.

In 1955, Sophiatown residents were forcibly removed from their homes, family and friends in Sophiatown.

A Culture of Survival

It was a struggle to survive in the city. Workers' wages did not keep pace with the cost of subsistence, and most black families lived below the bread line.

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Black workers' wages

Black families often had to supplement their incomes with the help of their women and children. Black women, in particular, demonstrated their resilience and determination in carving out a life for themselves and their families in the cities. Before the mid-1930s, it was difficult for black women to find work in the formal sector.

Domestic service tended to be reserved for men and employers were prejudiced against black women. This can be partly explained by the fact that African women did not have to carry passes until the 1950s, and were thus, not as easily controlled as African men.

As a result, black women had to rely on work in the informal sector. They became beer-brewers, or ran shebeens. Many took in washing or became hawkers. In this way, they were able to close the gap between wages and the cost of subsistence. They were also able to achieve some kind of economic independence through these informal activities.

Activity: Using some of the information below, place only the most important dates on the empty time line below. In the space provided summarize a short explanation of what happened. These date will be important and can be expected to be remembered for tests or exam purposes.

Sophiatown timeline 1899-1955

1899 Herman Tobiansky purchased land from the Johannesburg Municipality to develop as a residential area.

1912 Sophiatown has the first of its inhabitants. These are mainly white families1912-1921 Sophiatown grows, attracting other racial groups, mainly Africans as residents.

Coloureds and Indians are still a minority at this stage.1921-1930 Sophiatown’s population grows exponentially as compared to growth in the other

adjacent freehold townships of Newclare and Matindale.1932-1937 Successful shantytown clearance in the inner city leads to further growth in

Sophiatown’s population.1939-1945 During the war years, Sophiatown continues to grow. Some of the residents, Africans

included, enlisted in the army. Henry Nxumalo, a well-known Sophiatown resident and journalist is one of those that went to war.

1946 Anecdotal evidence suggests that Sophiatown was not untouched by the African miners’ strike.

1952 The tradition of resistance in Sophiatown is in evidence during the Defiance Campaign of that year. This showed the widespread support the ANC had in the township The Native Laws Amendment Act of 1952 is passed, destined to provide the NP government with the legal mechanism to remove Sophiatown residents and resettle them in Soweto.

1953 The NRB conducts a survey of Sophiatown residents in preparation for the forced removals that began in 1955.

1954 Residents of Sophiatown hold regular meetings in an attempt to coordinate the resistance to the impending forced removals. The ANC becomes involved and there is talk of the M-Plan that would undo the NRB’s plans.

1950 End of January, Police are deployed in Sophiatown in anticipation of a major resistance effort against forced removals.

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9 February 1955 - November 1959, Duration of the destruction and removal of the community from Sophiatown to Soweto. 

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Sequencing Timeline

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Activity: Divide yourself in groups of 4-5 and plan your kit. You are going to plan and execute the play: Sophiatown. As far as possible, dress up, dance, sing and/or do whatever it takes to set the theme and time period in which Sophiatown was set. HAVE FUN!

Use your set book, the play, to plan! This means, use the dialogue and the themes depicted in the play, to direct your skit. You will be evaluated on whether you convey the true meaning of the play. Integrate the most important parts, dates and facts. Consult the following rubric, to see how you will each be assessed. Although this is a group effort, each individual will be assessed individually. Take extra care to incorporate all the important parts of what truly happened in Sophiatown.

Sophiatown Play Rubric

Learners Name: ___________________________

Criteria 5 4 3 2 11. Learner(s) show in-depth understanding of the

characters and the events in Sophiatown during the 1950’s?

2. Learners speak loudly and clearly enough? 3. Learner expresses confidence and portrays the

character successfully? 4. The learner incorporates dance, song, Tsotsi-taal and

or any other influence evident within Sophiatown?(Grand Total: /20 Marks)

Assessments’ aim: Each depiction of the play, by all the various groups, may help the class remember the important facts/parts of the play.

Contextual Question based on the play: SOPHIATOWN Depicted by the Junction Avenue Theatre Company

Study the source below and answer the contextual questions that follow.

SOURCE A

JAKES: Whe've you been, Mingus? Been making trouble again?

MINGUS: Jakes, I'm in love, man. I've been to a wonderful funeral.

JAKES: A funeral? Is there a story there?

MINGUS: Ja, skryf daar, 'I went so nobody could say I killed him.'

(Charlie has crept up to Mingus and begins to shine his shoes while he is

still wearing them.)

MINGUS: Hey Charlie – leave off! Leave off! Go and sleep in the car. We've a job

tonight. I want you wide awake. Hey Charlie – move.

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(Charlie persists in trying to clean the shoes.)

MINGUS: Go on! (Mingus pushes Charlie away.) Jakes, ek wil 'n brief hê – 'n letter

van love.

JAKES: A love letter for you?

MINGUS: Ja, ek's in love, met a real tjerrie, 'n matara, a real ding, 'n princess...

That's her name – Princess!

JAKES: Why don't you write it yourself, Mingus? I'm working.

MINGUS: Ag man Jakes, ek kan nie skryf nie. You know that – ek kan wietie, maar

ek kan nie skryf nie.

JAKES: Well, that's too bad, man. I'm busy.

MINGUS: Listen, I'll give you a story, a story for a love letter.

Question 1

1.1 Why would an audience find line 4 funny? (2)

1.2 Characters fulfil a variety of functions in a play text.

1.2.1 Discuss why the inclusion of Charlie as a character is significant to the story of Sophiatown. (4)

1.2.2 Indicate what Mingus's attitude is towards Princess (lines 13–14) and explain how this changes during the course of the play. (4)

1.2.3 What advice would you give to a friend who wants to audition for the character of Mingus? Focus on the physical, emotional and vocal portrayal of the character. (6)

1.2.4 Discuss the dramatic function of the character of Jakes in the play. (4)

[Grand Total: /20]