Sophiatown in the 1950s

Sophiatown in the 1950sSophiatown is a suburb in Johannesburg, entropy Africa. It is located on a Johannesburg ridge c wholeed Melville Koppies. Sophiatown is an example of how apartheid was bad for the native inhabitants and that it had to go. Before apartheid Sophiatown was open up for Europeans, but as the city Johannesburg developed and a sewage diddly-shit nearby, the Europeans left and the fetch was then rented by the native peck. The natives were allowed to lessen in Sophiatown because it was near the sewage dump and the Europeans in the city didnt regard the miners to settle within the city limits. Sophiatown shows how South Africa developed under apartheid. The apartheid caused multiracial communities in Sophiatown that developed to let multicultural. Sophiatown was the only clothe the populate could rent themselves in Johannesburg that was not owned by the g overnment. Apartheid was the ruling of Europeans in South Africa over the natives during 1948-1994. The E uropeans found that South Africa had rich resources, especially gold, for mining and that they could use the grind of the natives to get it. They developed a politics system, Nationalist Party, which kept the natives rectify to maintain the European authority which was known as Afrikaners. The population of South Africa migrated to the sites the Europeans were building to mine the resources but they were required to abide by discriminative laws made by the Europeans. Sophiatown developed as Johannesburg did and helped to end apartheid.Sophiatown was originally a farm outside of Johannesburg bought by Hermann Tobiansky. Tobiansky named the suburb later his wife Sophia, and the suburb was only for Europeans. However, when a sewage dump was built nearby the Europeans didnt want to settle there and the owner allowed natives and other nationalities to settle there. During the beginning of the source world war natives travel to cities for the jobs in mining and factory work. During and after the first world war the Johannesburg City Council (JCC) passed slum clearance programs, which out covering fire(a) natives from the inner parts of Johannesburg. These batch had nowhere to go so they moved to Sophiatown (SA History).Because of the multiracial communities, the music culture of Sophiatown continued to develop in injure of the apartheid rule. During the 1920s the slums of Johannesburg were packed with hundreds of citizenry that set up clubs like the Marabi where approximately of the indigenous jazz of South Africa developed. The proper(postnominal) styles in Johannesburg were known as Tsaba-Tsaba which was a working class form of dance music. However, during the 1930s when the JCC was clarification out the slums, spate had to move to Sophiatown where shebeens and dance-parties were still held, but the South African Jazz was influenced by the American Jazz on the radio post in the hutch town. Because of the American influence groups in Sophiatown woul d happen American swing instead of the old Jazz from Johannesburg. The old Jazz came back and was combined with the new American swing to create Kwela which was basically penny whistling. The kwela culture in Sophiatown also developed different dance forms, virtuoso of which was phata-phata or touch touch. The kwela culture was part of the shady part of Sophiatown, people would gamble. Since the people were busted by the jurisprudence, people would set up look outs and when the police were nearby the people would put up all evidence and they would play kwela as an excuse for a gathering. During the 1950s kwela culture had piano and saxophone added to the instrumentation and it became Majuba. The name was exampleually changed to Mbaqanga (SA History).The culture of Sophiatown was greatly influenced by the households Odin and Balanskys. The Balanskys theatre played many movies from the join States. The gangs of Sophiatown patterned their behavior after the gangsters in the movi es they saw. The Tsotsis gang based their dress patterns and language after Street with No Name, they dressed in trench coats like in the movies and they used wear like Remember guys, Im de brains of dis outfit(SA history). Other gangs in Sophiatown were named after noted foreign parties like the Nazis and foreign gangsters like the American Vultures (Sophiatown)The day to day living of Sophiatown was difficult and was based on any way that they could survive. Because the people were forced out of the city to Sophiatown, the people lived in close quarters and poor living conditions. In Sophiatown the natives were not required by the establishment to acquire a permit. The black land owners had to pay huge mortgage so they allowed others to settle in their backyards. The population grew exponentially because of this and people had to become tenants and subtenants on other peoples backyards. Since they were ordinarily poor, the people who migrated to Sophiatown had to build houses out of surface sheets and excess materials. Since all the adult males were working in the mines, the adolescents were unsupervised and could do whatever they wanted to do and joined gangs as well as common theft and murder. The women in Sophiatown had to find work as prostitutes or they worked as alcohol queens in shebeens. Shebeens were similar to speak-easies in the United States, they were places that people could drink alcohol and talk about local problems. Shebeens were usually held in the queens homes with bands playing for entertainment. Shebeens were risky business since police could raid and arrest anyone within the Shebeens and the methods for brewing alcohol were dangerous at the time. However, Shebeens werent all bad they were places were politicians met and discussed ideas to people, and they werent all dirty dark rooms but were sometimes clean respectable places with imported furniture (Hannerz).The most important event in Sophiatown was the remotion and destruction of Sophiatown. The head of the South African government activity was the Nationalist Party which controlled the JCC. Because the Nationalist Party was part of the apartheid, it passed laws to suppress the natives in Sophiatown and they rationalized this because Johannesburg was growing and the black neighborhoods were getting too close to the white suburbs. The removal of the residents of Sophiatown was organized by the Native Resettlement Board, which was a more localized part of the NP. The people were moved to Soweto where the NP established a caparison system from a census about the population within the shanty town, but they didnt know about the housing that was being provided which was generally reform than the current living quarters of the average person in Sophiatown. The people refused to leave and the slogan of the people was ons dak nie.ons phola hierso which meant we are not contemptible We are staying (SA history). The people rebelled and used guns and explosives to keep the government officials from forcing them out, but the government eventually won and forced thousands to move to the meadowlands of Soweto. The destruction of Sophiatown continued from 1955-1960 during which the people were forced to move and their homes were bulldozed.The removals in Sophiatown brought peoples attention to the apartheids unjust rule, because it was the only place the government didnt strictly regulate. After the removals political leaders made speeches specifically naming the incident to inspire people to rise against the apartheid rule. One of the people who made such speeches about Sophiatown was Nelson Mandela. As well as the revolts in Sophiatown, people in Soweto were revolting because they lost everything they owned when they moved and the land owners lost all sources of income (SA History).Sophiatown was a suburb in Johannesburg during the rule of apartheid in South Africa. Sophiatown was the only place in Johannesburg that the government didnt own and exercise its discriminatory rules over during the apartheid. However, after Johannesburg grew closer to Sophiatown the government decided to terminate it and relocate the entire population to Soweto. The results of the destruction of Sophiatown were revolts that occurred both in Johannesburg and is Soweto where the people were relocated to. The destruction of Sophiatown helped cause the end of apartheid and developed a specific culture of its own.