The making of apartheid in Springs during the sixties: Group areas, urban restructuring and resistance
Date
1996-04-15
Authors
Nieftagodien, Noor
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Abstract
The term apartheid is now used in many contexts to denote systematic racial separation and
exploitation. A long tradition in South African studies has sought to explain apartheid by
reference to the changing forms and needs of capitalist exploitation, but comparatively little
attention has been paid to the apparently more exclusive racial aspects of this policy. The
Group Areas Act (GAA), passed in 1950, is a case in point. This Act became one of the
cornerstones and arguably the flagship of the government's segregationist policies. The
implementation of the GAA resulted in the forcible removal of hundreds of thousands of
blacks from their homes and their relocation into racially exclusive areas. Much of the human
misery caused by these policies has been well documented. The dismantling of integrated
communities in urban and peri-urban areas such as the Western Areas in Johannesburg,
District Six in Cape Town and Cato Manor in Durban have long captured the imagination of
scholars and the general public. The removal of Sophiatown in particular has been the subject
of numerous scholarly and popular works. …. A serious shortcoming in the extant literature is the dearth of proper and detailed analyses of the 1960s. Most histories of the making of apartheid concentrate on the period up to 1960. Others focus on the re-awakening of the proletariat in the early-seventies and the ensuing struggle for freedom. The impression is left that the sixties was indeed a dark decade, characterised by the unbridled success of the Nationalists. This gap in the literature means that our understanding of the implementation of apartheid remains incomplete.
This paper attempts to address these issues through a case study of Springs during the first
two and a half decades of apartheid, with a special focus on the sixties. The making of
apartheid is viewed from the perspective of the implementation of the GAA, urban
restructuring and the various forms of opposition to these plans.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 15 April 1996.
Keywords
Apartheid. South Africa. Springs (Gauteng). History, South Africa. Group Areas Act