Apartheid ‘town planning’ created Orlando 90 years ago. It became a hotbed of black resistance
ORLANDO East, a working-class community on the periphery of Johannesburg in South Africa, has turned 90 years old. Orlando was one of the first municipal locations – called townships under apartheid – 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. Author NOOR NIEFTAGODIEN, Head of the History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand 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…