{"id":1845,"date":"2015-09-25T11:46:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T10:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.lycee.nl\/?page_id=1845"},"modified":"2015-09-25T11:46:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T10:46:16","slug":"sophiatown","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/?page_id=1845","title":{"rendered":"Sophiatown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophiatown<\/h1>\n
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In 1897 a man named Herbert Tobiansky purchased some land just west of Johannesburg, South Africa.\u00a0 Later it became an area where low-income whites could lease property and was named Sophiatown (after his wife, Sofia).\u00a0 Sophiatown was established in 1904, but didn\u2019t get its first inhabitants (which were primarily white families) until 1912.\u00a0 It was during this time period that black South Africans had freehold rights and were able to buy properties, creating a racially mixed area that became increasingly black.\u00a0 Many middle class\u00a0 Africans were attracted because they had \u201copportunities for property ownership,\u00a0family and neighborhood life, and relative freedom from government interference\u201d (Coplan 172).\u00a0 By the 1920s whites moved out because white\u00a0residence was discouraged after the extension of unrestricted purchase of\u00a0 and in\u00a0 nearby areas.\u00a0 Their departure left behind a community of blacks,\u00a0 coloureds, Indians, and Chinese.\u00a0 As slum yards grew vacant, Sophiatown\u2019s population grew rapidly.<\/p>\n

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Sophiatown developed into the center of urban African music and culture and starting in the 1940s it began to enrich its musical performances and elements of popular culture.\u00a0 African identity was expressed through the mixing of cultures; such as that of African Americans and other musical styles that they were exposed to.\u00a0 More than any other urban community, the creation of Sophiatown represented the hopes of urban blacks in the event of westernization while maintaining conditions that were somewhat satisfactory for them.\u00a0 For the working-class, Sophiatown symbolized something greater than the struggle of fitting in socially; it symbolized the fight for survival while having to deal with expensive rent, poverty, overcrowding, unfair wages, and unfair treatment.\u00a0 The people of Sophiatown established a strong community identity.<\/p>\n

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The leading artists that were produced through Sophiatown were compared to New York\u2019s Harlem Renaissance and were called the \u201cSophiatown Renaissance\u201d.\u00a0 Many Africans also began to speak American slang and some even referred to certain parts of Sophiatown as \u201cLittle Harlem\u201d as Sophiatown began to become the Harlem of South Africa with its own Renaissance.\u00a0 Sophiatown had the first\u00a0 female vocalists or \u201csongbirds\u201d to lead major African orchestras.\u00a0 They were an important advancement of African jazz and the image of Sophiatown culture during the 1950s before apartheid began to take control.<\/p>\n

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In 1955 on February 9 about 2,000 armed policemen forcefully moved the families out of Sophiatown to Meadowlands and other parts of Soweto.\u00a0 Many families were torn apart and because of the government\u2019s racial classifications and strict separation of group areas, they were forced to live in separate\u00a0townships.\u00a0 Sophiatown represented music that was created to symbolize self-direction for the African community, only to be destroyed by apartheid.\u00a0 Over the next eight years Sophiatown was demolished so that it could be made into an area for whites and it was renamed Triomf (Afrikaans for Triumph) by the apartheid government. The name Sophiatown was officially restored 11 February 2006.<\/p>\n

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Sophiatown In 1897 a man named Herbert Tobiansky purchased some land just west of Johannesburg, South Africa.\u00a0 Later it became an area where low-income whites could lease property and was named Sophiatown (after his wife, Sofia).\u00a0 Sophiatown was established in 1904, but didn\u2019t get its first inhabitants (which were primarily white families) until 1912.\u00a0 ItContinue reading<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1845","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1845\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}