Truemors
Besides the shacks there are still bricked-houses as well. Those houses are from the year 1890 and 1910; they belonged to Chinese, Indian and other emigrants who left them behind. They were occupied by the have-nots and the families grew, lots of present occupants of this shack-area are born there. One of my contacts lived here for more than 40 years. It was one of the places where the black resistance against the shameful “apartheid” invented by the Afrikaners took roots and grew rapidly.
The brick houses have not been repaired and renovated for many, many years and were poorly “extended” when the need was there, extended with found bricks in the surrounding or with shacks. One only can guess the living-circumstances inside. I visited some interiors and left shocked: mostly one “room” for living, cooking and sleeping, without any outfit and leaking when it is raining.
"Kliptown, a suburb of the former black township of Soweto in Gauteng, South Africa, located about 17km south-west of Johannesburg. The population of Kliptown is between 38,000 and 45,000 (City of Johannesburg official web site). Kliptown is the oldest residential district of Soweto, and was first laid out in 1891 on land which formed part of Klipspruit farm. The farm was named after the klipspruit (rocky stream) that runs nearby. From 1903 the area was home to informal settlements (squatter camps), and the area now contains a mixture of purpose-built housing and a large number of shacks and other informal homes which form the Chris Hani and Dlamini settlements.
In June 1955 Kliptown was the home of an unprecedented Congress of the People, organised by the African National Congress, the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. This Congress saw the declaration and adoption of the Freedom Charter, which set out the aims and aspirations of the opponents of apartheid.
In 2005 Johannesburg City Council announced plans for renewal of the Kliptown area, including a large-scale housing project."
Source of the info about Kliptown: Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
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