Last Days Of Sophiatown
Last Days Of Sophiatown - Big machines and men with picks are beating down the last walls of Sof'town. Take a last look and say goodbye. Sophiatown, the city that was within a city, the Gay Paris of Johannesburg, the notorious Casbah gang den, the shebeeniest of them all. Sophiatown is now breathing for the last time. I was robbed on her streets, beaten up in her dark corners and I will never forget the day when a woman friend of mine was grabbed from me by Sophiatown's tough sons. Her people do not like the fact that she is being murdered and I sympathise with them because she was a free city. There was Aunt Babes, in Edith Street. Bright's place in Tucker and opposite him the Carlton Hotel, run by a Chinaman. She also had her respectable citizens. There was Dr. A.B. Xuma, the African M.D. and Mr J. R. Rathebe, who reminded everybody that he was once in America
