From the mid-1940s, the Witwatersrand East Rand and its gold mining and industries were the powerhouse of the South African economy (Bonner, 2000) and these industries drew in thousands of work seekers, fast-forwarding urbanisation in this region and creating a huge struggle for housing and transport. But very few of these hopeful migrants became rich, and many lived in dire poverty and squalor. There were massive systems of conflict. During the 1950s, the area became a focus of apartheid social engineering with the industrial townships of the East Rand seeing forced removals and relocations.
A paper by Bonner (2000) explains the intense upheavals in the area as the very diverse population were forced to deal with the social and political consequences and huge impacts of forced removals. Bonner’s paper highlights the development of an organised youth culture in the area and the extraordinary political mobilisation and mass opposition that came about in response to removals. Essentially thousands of people were relocated from the old location of Dukathole to the new “apartheid township of Katlehong” without consultation or appeal. Bonner’s article also explores the complex interaction of class, urbanity, generation, gender and ethnicity in the Germiston municipality. In the 1950s, trade unionism began to be established within the black political leadership and the populace at large. The Iron and Steel Workers Union, the Dry Cleaners Union and the Glass Workers and the Chemical Workers Union were established at that time, and the South African Communist party and African National Congress became...
