Sophiatown Project
Anglican Church of Christ the King
49 Ray Street Sophiatown
P.O. Box 474, Newtown 2113
49 Ray Street Sophiatown
P.O. Box 474, Newtown 2113
Tel : +27 11 477 8410
Christ the King Sophiatown
1. Introduction
For many people, both in South Africa and abroad, the Church of Christ the King in Sophiatown embodies and bears the scars and pain of forced removals that characterised South Africa from the 1950's. This experience is a microcosm of the South African reality.
Forced removals should be seen in the light of the rationalisation of separate development of the Apartheid Regime. These removals were complex affairs. The laws that guided these removals accumulated from the 1913 and 1936 Native Land Acts, the influx control Act of 1945, the 1950 Group Areas Act and the Promotion of Bantu Self Government Act of 1959. By the beginning of the 1980's these laws have been responsible for the forced removals of approximately 3.5 million people to so called black designated areas. At the beginning of the 1990's this number had risen to about 4 million people. The violence with which people have been removed has been both direct and indirect. Police with guns and bulldozers demolished houses and those who resisted were arrested. The tactics were intimidation, spreading of rumours, co-opting community leaders, schools and shops being pressurised to close and official building restrictions.
Sophiatown, the community
Sophiatown was a vibrant and growing community, known for it distinctive urban culture, jazz, the arts and innovative spirit. It was also one of the few urban centres where black people were landowners. Moving people forcefully from this thriving community was a type of cultural and emotional genocide. A communal poisoning, which effectively caused death in several parts of the community's life giving forces and organs. It was also a sign of the governments determination to triumph over the creative and life giving forces of Black people and the Black Community. This is seen in the re-naming of the area, Sophiatown became Triomf (which means Truimph!). That and subsequent events left a legacy of the spirit of death, which continues to overshadow the life giving forces within this community. The Apartheid regime itself already recognised even then the central role communities like Sophiatown played in move towards liberation of the country.
National significance
