increased by 300 a day and within weeks there were 4 000 shacks in the area. Wilfred Thabethe, like many older residents, reveres the role played by Mpanza.
We used to call that place Zama-Mpanza sacks, because he was the man who was a leader at that time. He is the man who actually started the shacks … This man came, Sofasonke Mpanza, he said there were many people who wanted houses. So he asked all the people who actually wanted houses to come out and build their shacks there, so that the authorities must see that too many people wanted houses. Yes.
Residents called the area ‘Masakeng’, the place of sacks, because the structures put up by the squatters were made of hessian sacks. The council was now desperate to stave off any further squatting and aimed to wrest control of Masakeng from Mpanza and his Sofasonke Movement by setting up a temporary camp close to Mpanza’s shantytown. The temporary camp comprised the most basic accommodation structures, nine metres square, made of breeze blocks, with asbestos roofs but without chimneys or window panes. Mpanza refused to move until the authorities guaranteed to provide permanent housing for the people. But a determined council began to tear down shacks and remove squatters to the new settlement. According to the historian Alf Stadler, ‘By the end of May 1944, 200 rooms had been built. By October 1945, 4 042 had been built to accommodate 20 000 people, and the last of the squatters’ shacks in “Shantytown”, as Mpanza’s camp came to be called, had been demolished.’
The squatter movement nonetheless left an indelible mark on urban politics in Johannesburg, showing that direct action by poor black people could force the authorities to respond to their demands. The sub-tenants of Orlando demonstrated unequivocally their determination to have rights in the city, and the most urgent of their rights was access to housing.
Source: Museum Africa
‘Masakeng’ — Place of Sacks
The houses built by the council still did not meet the housing needs of the growing population of homeless urban Africans. In January 1946, Mpanza led a second movement of squatters to occupy the incomplete houses in Orlando West. Similar squatter movements sprang up simultaneously across the Reef and, inspired by the example of Mpanza, local leaders from Alexandra, Evaton (Benoni) and other parts of Soweto led land occupations. Squatter movements from Pimville (led by Abel Ntoi), Orlando East (led by Oriel Monongoaha) and Alexandra (led by Schreiner Bhaduza) occupied empty space around Orlando. By the end of 1946, the number of squatters in the area numbered nearly 30 000. The council responded by putting up a number of emergency camps, such as Moroka, and setting aside more land for further housing. More than a thousand families were moved in April 1946 to Jabavu, where another major construction programme consisting of breeze-block houses was started.
The first twenty years of Wilfred Thabethe’s life reflected the trials and tribulations of thousands of African families who struggled to make a life for themselves in the city of gold. He was born in 1936 in Bertrams, after which his family moved to Alexandra, probably during the city’s clearance of inner city slums. Both his parents were domestic workers in a nursing home. In 1942, the Thabethe family moved to Orlando where they lived as subtenants and joined Mpanza’s movement to fight for a house of their own. But conditions in the settlements were harsh. Wilfred has vivid and lasting memories of the impact of the Highveld rain on their makeshift home:
In fact we did not realise how bad it was because, truly speaking, we had to stay in the shanty shelters which were called Masakeng. And when it was raining we could not sleep, we had to stand up for the whole night, because of the sacks. Do you understand? It was not roofed with corrugated iron, it was with a sack. And when it was raining the water, the rain, used to come inside the house to the extent that we had to wake up and stand up for the whole night, up until the morning. I felt sorry for my father because he had to go to work the following day. If it was raining for three days, for those three days we could not sleep. We could not sleep … We used to take some lime, we used to go to the mines and collect some lime to paint the parts of the roof sacks to prevent water from coming in … And then the lime, if you got a drop of it, was dangerous, because it was burning. It could burn a skin. It was hard, then.
At the first opportunity, the Thabethe family moved from Masakeng to the new settlement, which residents called eMaplatini (plots). According to Wilfred Thabethe, ‘It was the shelters built by the government. All this area next to Orlando station … were shelters Number Two, Number Three and Number Four shelters. They were divided just below Orlando Stadium on the side of the rail, that was now the shelters. It was in 1947.’ Despite promises from the authorities, the amenities, such as toilets and taps, were very limited. ‘At the shelters where we stayed,’ says Wilfred,‘there were no toilets for five years despite everything. We had toilets but they were public toilets, and they were far … next to the shanty township. So we used to walk to the toilets.’
Source: Museum Africa
People queue for homes in Orlando
The Thabethe family lived in the area from 1947 to 1954. ‘It is then,’ recalls Wilfred, ‘that the other part of Soweto was [built]. That was Dlamini, Molapo, and other areas. In 1954 my family moved to Dlamini. The stand that we had was a formal house. A four roomed house, with a toilet.’
People came to Orlando and Soweto from all over, journeying to settle in what was to become the country’s largest African township. The Matthews’ family history highlights the kinds of experiences that typified the lives of urban Africans. Mrs Matthews has talked about her early life:
I was born in 1921, here in Johannesburg, at a place called Prospect Township. But originally my parents were from Delmas, ja. Then we came to Prospect Township, right next to Heidelberg Road. This area was occupied by multinational groups, coloureds, whites, boers, everybody. They were moved from Prospect to Orlando East. And life was good there, but we struggled with shopping. The shops were very far. We had to travel a long distance. Jeppe was our nearest town for shopping. So, I was still very young when my parents moved to Orlando. My father was Paul Nkoane and used to travel by horses, selling vegetables to the boers. And my mother was Anna Nkoane, the first born of the Thlolwes. She was a domestic worker. We walked to school in Albert Street School at the Wesleyan Church. From there I went to George Goch for my higher primary. Most of the schools were held in church buildings back then. I was introduced to Mr [Philip] Matthews by Khala Andries, his friend. They were both from Kimberley. So, we dated until we got married. We stayed in Sophiatown. From Sophiatown we went to Mzimhlophe, then to Orlando West.
Many families followed a similar route. They would first find a foothold in one of the city’s slums, where it was easier to avoid detection by the state. Then they would find their way to one or other of the municipal locations, such as Orlando. Older residents from Orlando West often remember the creation of Masakeng as the time when they moved to the area. Nokuthula Ramoitheki was born in Orlando West in 1949, at 8357 Twala Street. Her mother came from Bizana in the old Transkei and her father from Natal.
When my grandparents came here they stayed at the plots … it is where my mother used to stay with her parents. She was pregnant with me when she was staying at the plots. When the boers removed them there, Mr Sofasonke brought them here. This is my grandmother’s house. I was born here. My mother came here and stayed here. During the process of the removals my father was killed there. I did not know that then. I don’t know him. He was killed there.
It appears that, as followers of Mpanza, the Ramoitheki family were part of the movement that occupied the newly built houses in Orlando West in 1946. As the authorities had not yet sold these houses, the new occupants claimed ownership over them. Houses in Orlando West were bigger than those in Orlando East and must have appeared quite luxurious to those living on the government plots. The Mazibuko brothers, whose family hailed from Reitz in the ‘Vrystaat’, recall the crammed conditions in Orlando East:
Yes, it was one room at first and as you looked at it you thought how do I sleep in a one room, but we slept like that. As we grew up then we decided