THEAPARTHEIDERA
Homeland called QwaQwa, 157,620 Africans were trying to survive on
239 square miles."!
In the cities outside the Homelands, the government transferred large
numbers of Coloureds and Indians, as well as Africans, from land they had
previously occupied to new segregated satellite townships. Under the
Group Areas Act (1950) and its many subsequent amendments, the gov-
ernment divided urban areas into zones where members of one specified
race alone could live and work. In many cases, areas that had previously
been occupied by Blackswere zoned for exclusivewhite occupation. Of the
numerous removals effected under this act, one of the most notorious was
Sophiatown, four miles west ofJohannesburg center. Sophiatown was one
of the few townships where Africans had owned land since before the
Urban Areas Act (1923) put an end to African purchases. In 1955, the
government removed the African inhabitants
to Meadowlands,
twelve
miles from the city. Sophiatown was rezoned for Whites and renamed
Triomf (Triumph). Another notorious removal was District Six, adjacent to
the center of Cape Town, which had been the home of a vibrant Coloured
community. since at least the early nineteenth century. The homes were