Orlando, a hotbed of resistance during apartheid, turns 90

ORLANDO East, a working-class community on the periphery of Johannesburg, has turned 90 years old. Orlando was one of the first municipal locations established in 1932 for Africans under the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act. It was renamed Orlando East when Orlando West was established in the 1940s.

Several new townships were created, especially in the 1950s, in the same region. They were eventually amalgamated into Soweto, the country’s largest township. Soweto was the primary dormitory township for African people working in Johannesburg.

Soweto is renowned as the site of the 1976 student uprising that shook apartheid – the country’s system of white minority rule – to its core. As one of the oldest parts of Soweto, Orlando has a longer history.

Soon after its establishment, Orlando became a centre of black urban culture and liberation politics. Its history reveals a rich tapestry of experiences that the state attempted to suppress. Much of this history has been marginalised in the democratic era’s emphasis on the history of the main liberation movements – the PAC and the ANC.

As a historian, I have published books on a number of black townships. Orlando is particularly significant because it has always been an important centre of black protest politics. But, as a recent exhibition to mark the anniversary revealed, Orlando also has a diverse and rich cultural and intellectual history.

African people were first settled in Klipspruit, a small residential settlement, in 1904. This followed the destruction of the inner city area of Johannesburg, the “Coolie Location”, after the outbreak of pneumonic plague which white authorities erroneously blamed on poor black residents.

After World War II, Johannesburg’s black population grew steadily. In the absence of adequate housing provision, overcrowded poor settlements emerged. Determined to maintain the city as a space of white power and privilege, the Johannesburg Council proceeded to systematically remove black people from areas it defined as “slums” to the city’s periphery.

Orlando was one of several municipal locations established across the country in the 1930s and 1940s as a cornerstone of the government’s urban segregation project. The authorities celebrated Orlando as a “model location” that would have tree-lined streets, business opportunities, schools and recreational facilities.

But the experiences of residents differed markedly from these rosetinted views. Nelson Botile, whose family occupied one of the matchbox houses that typified housing for black people, recalled that “the walls were not plastered, they were rough and the floor was just grass … The houses had no taps, we had the bucket system”.

In the absence of a sewage system, households used buckets as latrines.

Many people initially refused to move to Orlando, preferring to live in freehold locations such as Alexandra, a black township on the other side of Johannesburg. However, as urbanisation accelerated from the mid-1930s, Orlando became a favoured destination for African people determined to settle permanently in the city.

By the early 1940s, Orlando had emerged as a hub of black urban life. This was evident in the proliferation of social, cultural and political activities.

Soon after residents moved in, soccer emerged as one of the most popular leisure activities. Orlando Pirates (formerly Orlando Boys Club) was established in 1937 and has remained an integral part of the township’s identity.

In 1939, Orlando High School was formed and quickly developed a reputation for educational excellence.

Among its early teachers were luminaries of the country’s cultural and political world, such as Es’kia Mphahlele, a prominent literary scholar, and Zeph Mothopeng, a leader of the PAC. They worked with other wellknown educationists Isaac Matlhare, Peter Raboroko and Phyllis Maseko. Renowned maths teacher TW Kambule was an influential principal for nearly two decades from 1959.

In the early 1940s, Orlando was home to the first major squatter movement. James Mpanza emerged as its inspirational leader. In 1944, his Sofasonke Movement led a campaign under the slogan, “Housing and shelter for all”. He led thousands of subtenants to occupy land, which prompted the authorities to provide emergency accommodation.

A similar movement in 1946 inspired land occupations across the Witwatersrand. This ultimately forced the state to embark on large housing projects that resulted in the development of Soweto, among others.

Orlando was a key site of radical African politics, led by a new generation of activist intellectuals. In the late 1940s, the local branch of the ANC Youth League featured strongly in the struggle against the conservative leadership of the ANC, founded in 1912. From the mid-1950s, Orlando was home to a more militant group of Africanists – such as Mothopeng, Raboroko and Potlako Leballo – who became part of the PAC, which emerged from a split in the ANC.

This tradition of youthful radicalism continued into the 1970s. The students’ protest march of June 16 changed the course of the country’s history. Increasingly today, residents recognise the importance of having to shape their own futures.