Sophiatown / s oʊ ˈ f aɪ ə t aʊ n /, also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a poor multi-racial area and a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid.

The removal of people and the destruction of Sophiatown took place from 1955 to 1960. People’s homes and other properties were destroyed. After the removal of people from Sophiatown, Nelson Mandela made a speech, specifically naming the incident to encourage people to rise against Apartheid system. Resident of Sophiatown lost everything they ...

2015年2月11日 · Sixty years ago, the South African government cleared Sophiatown, a multi-racial neighbourhood in Johannesburg, to turn it into a whites-only area.

2025年3月12日 · Sophiatown, also known as Sof’town or Kofifi, was a vibrant cultural and intellectual hub in Johannesburg, South Africa, before its destruction under apartheid. A unique freehold township, it was one of the few urban areas where Black South Africans could own land, making it a center for resistance, creativity, and political activism.

2011年3月16日 · The destruction of Sophiatown is widely documented, considered as the Nationalist Party (NP) government's model for its urban apartheid legislation and policies. However, there are still glaring gaps in critical areas of the township's history that need to be plugged to achieve a fuller account of Sophiatown community experience of the ...

2011年3月16日 · In 1899, an investor named Herman Tobiansky envisaged a pleasant white suburb that could be developed on a site to the West of Johannesburg. It was some way out of town, on high ground which sloped upwards towards a koppie, and was charming and attractive.

2025年3月25日 · Sophiatown is a hidden Johannesburg gem located next to Westdene, close to Melville and Auckland Park. This small area is full of rich history that dates back to February 1955, when the National Party destroyed the area under the Group Areas Act under Apartheid law.

2017年8月25日 · Over the next eight years the vibrant Sophiatown was flattened and removed from the maps of Johannesburg to give way for Triomf – Afrikaans for “triumph” – a residential suburb for whites created by the policy of apartheid.

2011年11月27日 · In 1955 the apartheid government swept into Sophiatown — which was a multicutural, artistically vibrant community and one of the few places in Jozi where people of different races lived together — and leveled it.

Sophiatown was one of the last cities to have black and white people living in the same place, but then suddenly bulldozers came along to destroy and evict them. 2,000 soldiers backed them up with rifles. They were ready to enforce the rules.