A FIRST REPORT FROM MY COUSIN WHO ARRIVED IN SOPHIATOWN IN 1957
“They are being dumped here and left to build their own dwellings. On the site is a barbed wire enclosure in which stocks of old timber, the sides of tea chests new stored and the people are permitted to buy these for the building of their little huts and shacks that must serve them for a home in this howling wilderness. Until I reached this parish I had never seen so heart-rending and shameful a sight. These people are being treated in a way that no self-respecting white man would treat an animal. Many of the people had only been able to afford half a room and there would be anything up to 8 or 10 people living, if the word can be used, living in it.”
The South African Town Destroyed To Make Way for a Whites Only Suburb
Trevor Huddleston’s book, Naught for Your Comfort (and preaching) had first brought “the evils of Apartheid” to the attention of the world.(Quote is from my cousin.)
An old school friend of mine had been involved in a sit-in outside a British Bank, involved in South Africa at the time. He eventually became a priest.
https://familytreeourstory.com/2023/03/05/free-nelson-mandela-lyric-video
“The Dean of Cape Town told me that his wife had led an inspection party to this camp and and that there were no lavatories provided and many had to go as far as two miles to get water. When she protested to the authorities she was suavely told she must have overlooked the sanitary conditions and if she would bring her party out again in a week’s time, she would be shown there that they really were there.”
Apparently when she went out again the following week, things had improved slightly and for every dozen or so houses there was a latrine.
As I understand it the place where they were dumped later became known as Meadowlands.
https://familytreeourstory.com/2023/03/05/meadowlands/
See Here a documentary from 1957 about Apartheid in South Africa.
Ntonga Masilela Wrote about that period in Sophiatown in his writing Sophiatown Remembered.
Bryce Courtney – The Power of One
Penguin Presents Bryce Courtney
Bryce Courtney was bullied at school as a lone English boy among The Afrikaans
A ruthless defender of Apartheid begs for forgiveness.
The World’s Pariahs
For a long time South Africa had been a v total pariah. I met my first South Africans in Israel in 1990. From memory South Africans had been banned from travelling to just about everywhere except Israel back then.
See:https://www.aamarchives.org/archive/goods/posters/boy19-stop-tourism-to-south-africa.html
Spitting Images had tuned in to the sentiment of the times with their catchy little ditty;
I’ve Never Met A Nice South African
I am pleased to say I have since met many nice South Africans, including possibly I suspect Elon Musk.(long before he was famous!) From memory (if it was him.) he was very nice.
My daughter cannot believe my name-dropping. I am not sure I do yet. If it was him, he was very young, sweet and fresh-faced at the time.
See Also:https://familytreeourstory.com/2020/08/06/january-1990-israel/
Redemption Song– Bob Marley
My cousin chose to live out the rest of his days in South Africa. He lived well into his nineties. Towards the end of his life, he would sit quietly listening to the radio, stroking his cat and praying for people.
See Also:
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