It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians and artists, like Father Huddleston, Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Es'kia Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, Todd Matshikiza, Nat Nakasa, Casey Motsisi, Dugmore Boetie, and Lewis Nkosi.

[4] Before the enactment of the Natives Land Act, 1913, black South Africans also had freehold rights in the area, and bought properties in the suburb.

[7] On 9 February 1955, 2,000 policemen, armed with handguns, rifles, and clubs known as knobkierries, forcefully moved the first batch of black families from Sophiatown to Meadowlands, Soweto.

[9] Marlene van Niekerk's award-winning novel Triomf focuses on the daily lives of a family of poor whites in this era.

On 11 February 2006, the process finally came to fruition when Mayor Amos Masondo changed the name of Triomf back to Sophiatown.

Several fairly narrow layers of gravel, deposited quite late in the sequence, and bearing heavy elements, made the Witwatersrand Supergroup famous.

[11] In the last 1,000 years, black Iron Age immigrants arrived and remains of their kraal walls can be found in the area.

Others were built like homes in the rural areas; others still were single room shacks put together with corrugated iron and scrap sheet metal.

Eight or nine people lived in a single room and the houses hid backyards full of shanties built of cardboard and flattened kerosene cans,[14] since many Black property owners in Sophiatown were poor.

A respectable lifestyle rested on the three pillars of religious devotion, reverence for formal education, and a desire for law and order.

[15] People struggled to survive together starvation was a serious problem, and a rich culture based on shebeens (informal and mostly illegal pubs), mbaqanga music, and beer-brewing developed.

People came to the shebeens not only for skokiaan or baberton (illegally self-made alcoholic beverages), but to talk about their daily worries, their political ideas and their fears and hopes.

The musical King Kong, sponsored by the Union of South African Artists, is described as the ultimate achievement and final flowering of Sophiatown multi-racial cultural exploits in the 1950s.

King Kong is based on the life of Sophiatown legend Ezekiel Dlamini, who gained popularity as a famous boxer, notorious extrovert, a bum, and a brawler.

When King Kong premiered in Johannesburg, Miriam Makeba the vocalist of the Manhattan Brothers, played in the female lead role.

[3] One of the boys, Hugh Masekela at St Peter's School, told Father Huddleston of his discovery of the music of Louis Armstrong.

[16] Images of Sophiatown were initially built up in literature by a generation of South African writers: Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, Es'kia Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, Todd Matshikiza, Nat Nakasa, Casey Motsisi, Dugmore Boetie, and Lewis Nkosi who all lived in Sophiatown at various stages during the 1950s.

They all shared certain elements of a common experience: education at St Peter's School and Fort Hare University, living in Sophiatown, working for Drum magazine, exile, banning under the Suppression of Communism Act and for many the writing of an autobiography.

[18] Later, images of Sophiatown could be found in Nadine Gordimer's novels, Miriam Makeba's ghostwritten autobiography and Trevor Huddleston's Naught for your comfort.

[19] Alan Paton also details the social, cultural and political trajectory of Sophiatown in his 1983 novel, Ah, but Your Land Is Beautiful.

[23] One of the more successful community campaigns emerged in the early 1950s when informal policing initiatives known as the Civic Guards were mobilized to combat rising crime.

This attempt to restore law and order attracted widespread support prior to a series of bloody clashes with the migrant criminal society from the poorer enclave of Newclare.

These supposed arbiters of law and order engaged in a series of brutal street battles with members of the "Russians" gang in the early 1950s.

The nave was enclosed, a large font was built and wooden panelling and false organ pipes changed the look of the interior.

He was a local celebrity, President of the African National Congress and Chairperson of the Western Areas Anti-Expropriation and Proper Housing Committee.

[27] The writer, actor and journalist Bloke Modisane reminisces that among all those modest, run-down buildings, could stand the palatial home of Dr A.

It was run by the Anglican nuns, the Order of St Margaret, East Grinstead, who remained in charge until 1978, when they left South Africa in protest against apartheid.

The Church successfully opposed removal of the Home because the property was on farm land and not part of a proclaimed township.

It was in this Freedom Square in Sophiatown that Nelson Mandela made his first public allusion to violence and armed resistance as a legitimate tool for change.

[34] Current remnants of Freedom Square may be found beneath a school playing field alongside the Christ the King Church.