EXPERIENCING SOPHIATOWN, conversations among residents about the past, present and future of a community

177 pp., map, colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2013

A collection of transcriptions of conversations between Sophiatown residents. From 2008 facilitators from the University of Johannesburg worked with Sophiatown residents to organise meetings in which groups of residents could talk to each other, compare experiences and ideas, identify the challenges they face as a community, and together find ways to create a new history.

In the 1950s the National Party government forcibly removed around 65 000 Sophiatown residents, bulldozed their homes and replaced them with cheap housing for whites. They renamed the suburb Triomf (Triumph).