Creation of Townships/Forced Removals
The Group Areas Act (1950)
- In 1950, the government introduced a pivotal law that enabled racial separation in residential areas, giving authorities the power to evict non-Whites from inner-city neighborhoods designated for White occupation only.
- Between 1960 and 1983, over 3.5 million black South Africans were relocated away from urban areas.
- In the mid-1950s, additional laws were passed that expanded the state's authority to forcibly relocate African communities and clear out racially mixed neighborhoods.
- Urban centers and adjacent suburbs were reserved for White residents, while Black people were relocated to distant, overcrowded settlements on the outskirts of cities.
- The law was rooted in the belief that Black South Africans were naturally suited to rural life and posed a social threat if allowed to settle permanently in urban environments.
- A 1947 report, commissioned by the National Party, argued that Black people should live only in native reserves and be allowed in cities solely for their economic utility to Whites.
- Indians and Coloureds were among the first targeted by this law, with many business owners forcibly removed from city centers and relocated to ethnically zoned outer suburbs.
- Government boards were set up to coordinate removals, starting with prominent Black communities like Sophiatown, which became a model for removals nationwide.
Case study
- The Destruction of Sophiatown (1955)
- Sophiatown, located just outside Johannesburg, was a vibrant, multiracial suburb known for its rich cultural life, political activism, and artistic creativity.
- Leaders like Mandela and Sisulu often visited Sophiatown. Doctors, journalists and artists lived and worked there.
- It was one of the few places where Black South Africans could own land under freehold titles, thanks to black South Africans that had bought land with the laws from before 1913.
- The area became a symbol of urban Black identity and intellectualism, producing prominent writers, journalists, musicians, and political leaders.
- Despite poverty and overcrowding, it was a place of strong community ties and resistance to apartheid oppression.
- The apartheid government viewed Sophiatown as a threat to its vision of racially segregated cities and Sophiatown was targeted for demolition and racial re-zoning.
- Officials argued that the area was overcrowded and unsanitary, but the true motive was ideological: to erase racially mixed communities and assert White control over urban spaces.
- Sophiatown was slated to become a White suburb renamed "Triomf" (Afrikaans for "triumph").
- Beginning in February 1955, police and government officials arrived in military-style convoys to begin the removals. Armed forces oversaw the dismantling of homes, with families being forcibly relocated to far-off townships like Meadowlands in Soweto. Residents had little choice—either comply or face arrest. Trucks carried people, often with minimal belongings, to poorly built houses in distant areas.
- The operation continued for several years until the entire community was emptied.
- The destruction of Sophiatown shattered a unique, self-sustaining Black urban community.
- Families were separated, livelihoods disrupted, and cultural life silenced.
- The old neighborhood was bulldozed and replaced with a sterile White suburb, erasing decades of Black ownership and heritage.
- The psychological toll was immense, with many feeling a loss of identity and community.
Exam technique
- In Prescribed Topic 1: Rights and Protests, in many occasions the Paper revolves around one specific case study.
- Make sure you learn some details about Sophiatown, as it is a symbol of the forced relocation policies put forward by apartheid.
Forced Removals
- Those displaced were forced to register in unfamiliar areas, often given minimal supplies, and placed in cramped housing units known as "matchbox homes" with no proper sanitation.
- Although some of the housing structures were physically solid, they served purely functional purposes: places where Black workers could rest between shifts.
- They were never designed to foster a sense of home or belonging.
- Townships were deliberately isolated from White neighborhoods by a buffer zone of around 500 yards (roughly 460 meters), often filled with empty land, factories, or major roads.
- Many of the older townships were enclosed by fences with entry points controlled by gates.
- Access was restricted-not only were they off-limits to White citizens, but even outsiders who didn’t live there were barred.
- The rapid population growth in these poorly constructed townships led to massive overcrowding, insufficient infrastructure, and severe shortages of schools, clinics, and law enforcement.
- As these settlements expanded, they replaced older, integrated neighborhoods, eroding community ties and social norms, and contributing to a surge in crime and gang activity.
- A parallel crisis emerged with thousands of squatters settling on township borders without official approval, further straining already inadequate services and space.
- Although a few exceptions allowed longtime urban Black residents to remain, or domestic workers to live with employers (without their families), the laws overwhelmingly disrupted Black family life and reinforced a system built on racial hypocrisy and exploitation.
Note
- What did Black South Africans do in the face of forced removals?
- At this point, blacks were already organized in different forms of resistance and protest, as we will see later.
- Some have argued that there was no active/violent resistance to the removals because of the aggression put forward by the government against families and non-politicized communities, which made resistance hopeless.
- Nevertheless, the case of Sophiatown and others did impact the protest movement against apartheid.
- Historians argue that forced removals radicalized the new generation of the movement against apartheid, who grew disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of passive resistance and civil disobedience.
- Even Mandela declared that Sophiatown had shown him that only armed struggle would work against the apartheid government.
