ONE DAY IN SOWETO
town·ship
/ˈtounˌSHip/
noun
…(in South Africa) a suburb or city of predominantly black occupation, formerly officially designated for black occupation by apartheid legislation.
Soweto, a township southwest of Johannesburg, has seen rapid development since the end of Apartheid in 1994 and while it’s still a very low-income area, it remains incredibly significant in South Africa, both historically and culturally.
Nelson Mandela and Trevor Noah are among a few of the names you might recognize from people who spent time there before rising to fame, and it played an important role in building the resistance that eventually ended Apartheid.
I had a short amount of time in Johannesburg and felt I needed to see what Soweto was all about. I spent an afternoon trying to understand where this place had been, where it is now, and in what direction it is heading.