Soweto History and Archives Project

SOWETO HISTORY

AND ARCHIVES COLLOQUIUM

Tuesday, 31 October 2023 Humanitites Graduate Centre, Faculty of Humanities, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East, University of the Witwatersrand

The conglomeration of townships known as Soweto has a history of more than century, although its component parts have different historical timelines, reflecting the growth and expansion of this landscape over time. Soweto, the name and township, is widely known and identifiable partly as a result of the leading role it played in the student uprising that broke out in 1976 spreading to black townships across the country. It has over the years been a home to many household names in politics, education, sports, literature and the performing arts. But most importantly, it is home to nearly two million ordinary people who make it alive.

Its history is traced back to the mass migration to the goldfields to prospect for gold in the reef from 1886. This led to the rise of locations like the “Kaffir” and “Coolie” Location and Brickfields in Johannesburg’s inner city. In the outskirts of the city, Kliptown was established in 1903 about 25 kilometers south of the centre. It is in this far flung area that the further expansion of the townships in the south of Johannesburg would follow. During the interwar years, and prompted by the Native Urban Areas Act of 1923, new townships were included such as Pimville and Orlando. In the aftermath of the Sofasonke squatter movement, the white authorities massively expanded the township during the 1950s and 1960s, making Soweto the largest in the country.

Despite its prominence, Soweto’s history has not been chronicled in depth and the existing scholarship has been limited to a few salient themes. Understandably, there is a 1

well-established body of scholarship on the student uprising of 1976 and liberation struggles, but research on local areas has received scant attention, while there is a relatively small, but growing interest in biographies of prominent personalities.

Official archives on Soweto are mainly located in the National Archives, which include documentation about the various municipalities that constituted apartheid-era Black Local Authorities. However, these collections rarely contain material on the rich everyday experiences of township residents. Institutions such as universities and NGOs that have researched the lives, struggles and landscape of Soweto, often have not paid adequate attention to archives, resulting in valuable research material being scattered and disorganised. This state of affairs persists in spite of the extensive memory and public history work undertaken in various parts of Soweto and Kliptown, multiple heritage impact studies to develop Soweto and the declaration of a number of sites of historic significance since 1994.

In 2023 the History Workshop launched the Soweto History & Archives Project with three objectives: 1. To produce comprehensive histories of SOWETO through academic research (by established academics and postgraduate students) and in partnership with community organisation in various Public History initiatives.

2. To build a community-based archive of SOWETO, comprising oral histories and material collected from organisations, groups and individuals.

3. To make accessible and disseminate histories and archives to the residents of SOWETO and broader publics in general, with a particular emphasis on education institutions.

The aim of the colloquium will be to discuss individual papers and to develop a conceptual framework for a possible publication as well as to map ongoing research.

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Colloquium programme 8h00-8h30: Registration 8h30-8h45: Welcome & Opening •Welcome and Introductions : Prof. Noor Nieftagodien •Head of School: Prof. Nicole De Wet-Billings 8h45-10h30: Panel 1 Chair: Arianna Lissoni Speakers: • Ali Khangela Hlongwane: Khumbula My Child: Ingoapele Madingoane, Soweto’s Poet Laureate • Kasonde Mukonde: Revisiting Resistance Theatre after ‘76: Some Reflections • Daniel Lee: ‘On the Scene in Soweto’: Navigating Queer Nightlife and Social Scenes in Soweto, 1976-2000.

• Sihle Luma: “What A Polite Game Tennis Is”: The History of Tennis in Soweto, 1920 – 1990.

• Boitumelo Tlhoaele: The value of a list and the story of the Jabulani Amphitheatre 10h30-10h45: Coffee & Tea break 10h45-12h30: Panel 2 Chair: Maria Suriano Speakers: • Billy Mashamaite: Gangsterism in Soweto: The Intersection between Street Gangs and Organised Crime in the Late 1980s and 2000s.

• Bahima Mandelisa: “Part of The Family”: Relationship between African domestic workers and African families in Dube, Soweto 1986-2015 • Sekibakiba Lekgoathi: Social and political history of Soweto hostels, 1945 – 2020 • Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu: A Brief History of Vista University, Soweto Campus

12h30-13h30: Lunch 13h30-15h00: Panel 3 Chair: Kasonde Mukonde Speakers: • Lungile Madywabe: Ingenious Beginnings: Pimville’ s Improbable Business Origins • Maria Suriano: Ma Vesta Smith and the everyday politics of liberation • Kana Kondo: Life Stories of the Storytellers of the Soweto Uprisings: A Comparison of Different Generations • Noor Nieftagodien: Constituting Student Politics in Soweto Before And After 1976.

15h00-15h15: Coffee & Tea break 15h15-16h45: Panel 4 Chair: Sihle Luma Speakers: • Matime Shele Papane: VAAL HiRAI • Ruth Motau: “We Exist” • Laurence Steward: SHAP website • Antony Kaminju: Soweto Derby: A spectacle of soccer fandom

Speaker’s Profiles Antony Kaminju Antony Kaminju is a documentary photographer, multimedia producer and educator. His work gives evidence that he is a keen observer of everyday life and intrigued by moments of performance, identity, archival research, urban spaces and pop culture. Over the years he has been facilitator of documentary photography studies at the Market Photo He has also served as Phojournalism lecturer at University of Witwatersrand - Journalism department as well as a visiting lecturer at University of Johannesburg Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture.

His articles and images have been published and reviewed by local and International media and exhibited widely, twice at the Bamako Biennale, Mali. His work is also part of art collection by the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) in France and the Wedge Gallery in Toronto, Canada. He is interested on researching further on Kenyan Colonial archives in the context of photographic images and films.

Amanda Xulu Amanda Xulu is currently pursuing her MA in History (by dissertation) as part of the History Workshop’s Soweto History and Archive Project 2023 cohort. Prior to this, Amanda obtained her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in History and Politics & International Studies at Rhodes University in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Professionally, Amanda has gained seven years’ experience through exhibition and museum development in the heritage preservation sector and has served as a manuscript editor, writer, researcher, project coordinator and project manager. Amanda is passionate about uncovering the hidden histories of women’s roles as activists in various African liberation struggles.

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Ali Khangela Hlongwane Ali Khangela Hlongwane (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) Ali Khangela Hlongwane is a Research Associate in the History Workshop at Wits University and leads the Soweto History and Archive Project (SHAP). He holds a PhD in Heritage Studies and an MA from Wits University.

Hlongwane has published on the public histories of the 1976 uprisings: The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 7: Soweto Uprisings-New Perspectives, Commemoration and Memorialisation, 2017. He is co-editor of Soweto 76 Reflections on the liberation struggles Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of June 16, 1976, (2006); co-author of Public History and Culture in South Africa: Memorialisation and Liberation Heritage Sites in Johannesburg and the Township Space, (2019). His recent publications are Lion of Azania A biography, (2021) and We Must Return Home Armed or Unarmed The Biography of John Nyati Pokela 1921 – 1985) With Selected Speeches and Writings, (2021). Hlongwane has also contributed book chapters on PAC Radio Broadcasts during the organisation’s underground period and on his earlier work in the performing arts as an actor and arts administrator.

Billy Mashamaite Billy Mashamaite is an honors student with the History Workshop and Department of History at Wits University. His research is Gangsterism in Soweto: The Intersection between Street Gangs and Organised Crime in the Late 1980s and 2000s.

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Kasonde Thomas Mukonde Kasonde Thomas Mukonde Kasonde Thomas Mukonde is a Doctoral Candidate in History with the History Workshop and Department of History at Wits University.

He has previously worked as a teacher and a librarian, and published work on the history of reading in Soweto high schools in an international peer– reviewed journal.

Apart from working on guerrilla radio, his doctoral research focuses on township– based resistance theatre in South African townships from the 1970s to the year 2000. Kasonde obtained his undergraduate degree in history from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Bahima Tebogo Mandelisa Bahima Mandelisa is currently pursuing her MA in history (by Coursework and Research report), under the History Workshop’s Soweto History and biography Project 2023 cohort. Her research interest includes women history, particularly socioeconomic inequality, women’s rights in South Africa and racial inequality.

Subsequently to this, Bahima obtained her undergraduate degree in which she majored in History and Psychology at North-West University (Vaal Triangle Campus) in 2022. The following year 2023, Bahima obtained her honours degree in history from North-West University. Professionally, Bahima has gained three years’ experience in teaching first years and second years and hopes to join the academic space. Bahima has served as tutor, student academic assistant and researcher.

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Daniel Lee Dan is a Master’s candidate interested in nightlife histories and their intersection with queer social histories. They are passionate about exploring queer histories from the perspective of recreation, hedonism and social life, in an attempt to populate the archive with a more varied and multifaceted understanding of LGBT histories. Their work explores music styles, fashion, club life and social spaces as they relate to queer people’s continued fight for safe spaces in the night.

Dan’s MA focuses on queer nightlife and social life in Soweto, and the shebeens, stokvels and pubs that hosted queer people throughout the late apartheid era. Their research seeks to understand where and how Soweto’s LGBT residents fought for space and freedom following the Soweto Uprisings. They are particularly interested in exploring what it meant to be part of the queer ‘scene’ as a resident of Soweto, and establishing a history of the community’s queer life.

Boitumelo Tlhoaele Boitumelo Tlhoaele is an associate lecturer in the Curatorial, Public and Visual Cultures department at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is also a Doctoral Fellow at the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, Stellenbosch University. Her research interests explore the intersections between jazz and art, working with music and visual archives within the context of curatorial practices. She holds an MA in Heritage Studies (University of the Witwatersrand). Her curatorial projects include the exhibition, Leeto: A Sam Nhlengethwa Print Retrospective (2019) amongst others.

Lungile Butu (formerly writing as Lungile Madywabe) 6

Kana Kondo Kana Kondo is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. Her research focuses on the commemoration of the 1976 Soweto uprisings, particularly the transmission of memory to the next generation through local museums and schools in present-day Soweto, and even the storytelling of local history by the next generation itself. She had been a visiting scholar at the History Workshop and conducted fieldwork in Soweto from June 2021 to May 2023.

She is now writing her dissertation in Japan. Publications: Kondo, K. 2023. A Place of Remembrance in South Africa’s Post-Memory Boom: Depicting the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum from Everyday Life in Soweto. Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies, 3(1), 203221.

Maria Suriano Maria Suriano is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Wits. Suriano specialise in African popular culture, print cultures and life history writing. She has conducted research on various aspects of Tanzanian (colonial and postcolonial) history: Swahili newspaper writings, fashion and social change, women’s participation in the liberation struggle, independent publishing and Pan-Africanism, the links between popular music, modernity, community-building and anti-apartheid solidarity, and the relations between Tanzanians and South African exiles. She has recently completed the biography of the 7

late Ma Vesta Smith, an anti-apartheid community activist who spent most of her life in Noordgesig, Soweto.

Noor Nieftagodien Nieftagodien holds the Chair in Local Histories, Present Realities at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), where he is also the director of the History Workshop. His interests center on aspects of popular insurgent struggles, public history, youth politics, and local history. He is currently investigating the history of the Congress of South African Students, the leading student organisation in the struggle against apartheid and heads the public history initiative, the Soweto History and Archives Project.

Among his publications are: The Soweto Uprising; Alexandra - A History & Ekurhuleni – The Making of an Urban Region (co-authored with Phil Bonner); One Hundred Years of the ANC & Struggles in Southern Africa: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, 1919-1949 (co-editor).

Ruth Seopedi Motau Ruth Seopedi Motau is a social documentary photographer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently she is an Independent Photographic Consultant, Photographer, Exhibitor, Curator, Photo Editor, Mentor and Educator. She studied photography at the Photo Market Workshop. She also studied at Alexander Art Center for a short while. Upon completing her studies in 1993, she was hired as an intern photographer by (The Weekly Mail ) now Mail & Guardian Newspaper (M&G), where she worked under the supervision of 8

Pulitzer Prize-winner photojournalist Kevin Carter. During her tenure at the M&G, she had an opportunity to work for three international newspaper publications [Klassekampen (Norway), Dagens Nyhester (Sweden) and Newsday (USA)] on an exchange programme. She has been featured in over 50 Exhibitions (Locally and Internationally) as an Exhibitor and speaker. She was recently appointed to curate the Art Africa page. Internationally her work has been exhibited in countries including Brazil, China, France, Sweden,Spain,Austria and the US to mention a few.Her most notable photo essays and series include Shebeens, Sonnyboy’s Story, Women’s Hostel(Alexander) ,Pensioners ,Churches (Spirituality)Women and Municipal Service Delivery.

Sihle Luma Sihle Luma is a Master’s Candidate in History with the History Workshop. His interests revolve around sports histories. His master’s research focuses on the history of Black tennis in the Southern Transvaal, between 1920-1990. This research aims to recapture the “forgotten history” of the participation of Black tennis in the sport of tennis. In doing so, it looks to focus on the key figures of non-European tennis such as Richard Mogoai, Elizabeth Mogoai, Jane Muso, Grant Khomo, Herman Abrahams, Hoosen Jaybhay, Winnie Masoea, and Sompi Madika. Outside this research, Sihle is currently writing a paper titled A gym covered by full sweaty dreams”: Youth, tsotsis and the Dube Boxing Club, the 1950s – 1970s, which underlines and explores the role that the Dube Boxing Club played in the community of Dube between the 1950s and late 1970s, specifically focusing on the youth.

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Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu (University of South Africa) Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu is professor of history at the University of South Africa, and executive director at the South African Democracy Education Trust. He has an MA in history from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, and a PhD in history from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is co-author of the book Public History and Culture in South Africa: Memorialisation and Liberation Heritage Sites in Johannesburg and the Township Space (2019), and editor in-chief of The Road to Democracy in South Africa multi-volume series.

Tshepo Moloi Tshepo Moloi is a senior lecturer in the department of History at the University of Johannesburg. He obtained his MA and PhD in History from the University of the Witwatersrand. Moloi is the co-editor of Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa: Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars, and the Armed Struggle and the sole author of Place of Thorns: Black Political Protest in Kroonstad Since 1976. He has also contributed chapters in the various volumes of The Road to Democracy in South Africa under the auspices of the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET). Moloi is the editor of New Contree Journal and president of the Southern African History Society. His research interests include histories of liberation struggle in South Africa, with a particular focus on youth and student politics and underground work.

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Arianna Lissoni Arianna Lissoni is a researcher at the Wits History Workshop and part of the ‘Global Soldiers in the Cold War: Making Southern African Liberation Armies’ project. Her research and publications focus on the history and politics of the liberation struggle. She has co-edited the books: One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories Today (2012), The ANC between Home and Exile: Reflections on the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in Italy and Southern Africa (2015) and New Histories of South Africa’s Apartheid Era Bantustans (2017); and co-authored Khongolose: A Short History of the ANC in the North West Province from 1909 (2016).

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Vaal HiRAI… We are an initiative established in the Vaal area to seek alternatives and solutions to the challenges faced in the region and beyond.

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