Welcome to Week 29 of my #Gauteng52 challenge, for which I will visit and blog about a new place in Gauteng Province every week for 52 straight weeks. This week I visit Sophiatown The Mix*.*
The point of the #Gauteng52 challenge is for me to visit 52 places in Gauteng where I’ve never been before. However, I have been to Sophiatown many times. I’ve done walking tours of the suburb (see here and here) and listened to jazz in the Sophiatown Heritage Centre.
But Sophiatown The Mix – a new multipurpose center next to the old Heritage Centre, which offers many new and exciting events and services – had escaped my awareness until two months ago. So I think this still counts as new.
Some background on Sophiatown: Similar to Cape Town’s District Six, Sophiatown was a multiracial, richly cultural neighborhood that was destroyed under apartheid. During the 1950s, Sophiatown’s black, colored, and Asian residents were rounded up by police and forcibly removed to townships on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
The apartheid government razed Sophiatown to the ground – only three buildings survived – then rebuilt the suburb into an all-white enclave called Triomf (Afrikaans for “triumph”). Years after apartheid ended, in 2006, Sophiatown officially returned to its original name.
Sophiatown was home to many South African legends – musical heroes, anti-apartheid activists, writers, artists. Father Trevor Huddleston, a leading anti-apartheid voice within the Anglican church, lived here for years and is buried here. Musicians Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, and Abdullah Ibrahim and artist Gerard Sekoto also lived in Sophiatown.
There are references to Sophiatown all over the city, yet many Joburgers have no idea where it is because it was erased from history for more than three decades.
The Sophiatown Heritage Centre, which occupies the former home of Dr. A.B. Xuma (one of the few houses in Sophiatown that wasn’t destroyed), has been open for years. Sophiatown The Mix was built in 2015, immediately beside the Xuma house.
Sophiatown the Mix describes itself as a social enterprise, but I would describe it as a community center on steroids. It’s a museum, a community meeting place, a music and events venue, and a small business incubator. It’s hard to explain – I guess that’s why it’s called “The Mix”. But this hard-to-explain place is bringing more attention to Sophiatown and I love that.
I highly recommend the Sophiatown walking tours, which have been happening for years but seem to have expanded in frequency and breadth since the Mix was built. I did the tour twice over the last several weeks and had some extraordinary encounters, including conversations with current and former Sophiatown residents who experienced the forced removals in the 1950s. I also got inside Christ the King Anglican Church, another building that survived Sophiatown’s demolition, for the first time.
Sophiatown the Mix is at 73 Toby Street, Sophiatown. The Heritage Museum, inside the A.B. Xuma house, is open every day from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and has beautiful exhibits about the history of Sophiatown. Walking tours are available every day of the week and the Mix offers many other interesting exhibitions and events. More information here.
Read all of my #Gauteng52 posts and check out the interactive #Gauteng52 map.
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house?
I guess it’s wrong to say I’ve never blogged about 44 Stanley; I’ve mentioned it countless times over the years (see here and here) when writing about specific restaurants or shops that are there. But I’ve never written a dedicated post about 44 Stanley as a destination and it’s about time I did – especially now, with the holidays upon us.
I’ve been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I’m finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on Saturday Thorsten and I got the chance to visit Indwe Park, an indigenous garden and sculpture park in Braamfontein, and I knew I had my topic for today.
In 2020, I published a blog post with tips for Americans living in South Africa who wanted to vote in the U.S. presidential election. I thought about simply resharing that post this year. But then I realized: 1) I want to write a U.S. election post that will be fun and informative for everyone, not just other Americans; and 2) Believe it or not, the U.S. presidential election stakes are even higher in 2024 than they were in 2020. So I’m introducing you to some really cool Americans in Joburg – one who I’ve known forever and two who I just met – and tell you a bit about who they are, why they live here, and why they vote.
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It makes me smile, when I see it.