Image Number: APN113669
Path:
african.pictures /
Bailey's African History Archive /
Drum Social Histories
Description: DM1999121302:SAED:POLITICS:APARTHEID:SOCIAL:NOV1959 - Last Days Of Sophiatown - Big machines and men with picks are beating down the last walls of Sof'town. Take a last look and say goodbuy. Sophiatown, the city that was within a city, the Gay Paris of Johannesburg, the notorious Casbah gang den, the shebeeniest of them all. Sophiatown is now breathing for the last time. I was robbed on her streets, beaten up in her dark corners and I will never forget the day when a womean friend of mine was grabbed from me by Sophiatown's tough sons. Her people do not like the fact that she is being murdered and I sympathise with them because she was a free city. There was Aunt Babes, in Edith Street. Bright's place in Tucker and opposite him the Carlton Hotel, run by a Chinaman. She also had her respectable citizens. There was Dr. A.B. Xuma, the African M.D., and Mr J. R. Rathebe, who reminded everybody that he was once in America. Sophiatown will also boast that it built two gentlemen who fell in l
Collections: Baileys African History Archive
Subcollections:
Drum Social Histories
Country: South Africa
Pixel Size: 4655 x 4589
Media Id: 43_457
Credit: Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History Archive / Africa Media Online
Keywords:
Drum Magazine,
South Africa,
November,
South African history,
black and white image,
1959,
square,
apartheid,
Sophiatown,
forced removals,
Group Areas Act,
black African people,
1950s,
,
Model Release: No
Property Release: No