Forest Town, as the name implies, is a leafy

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It lies between the busy thoroughfares of

Jan Smuts Avenue Jan Smuts Avenue is a major street in Johannesburg, South Africa. It begins in Randburg, and passes through important business areas like Rosebank. It passes the Johannesburg Zoo, Zoo Lake and Wits University before becoming Bertha Street, an ...

and Oxford Road, and is bordered to one side by the

Johannesburg Zoo The Johannesburg Zoo is a zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa. The zoo is dedicated to the accommodation, enrichment, husbandry, and medical care of wild animals, and houses about 2000 individuals of 320 species. Established in 1904, it has trad ...

History

The suburb was first surveyed on land called Sachsenwald, now known as

Saxonwold Saxonwold is an affluent suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is situated in what was once the Sachsenwald Forest in the early 20th century. It is located in Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History The suburb ...

, in 1908. The name of the suburb is derived from the Sachsenwald plantation. Forest Town is well known as the scene of a high profile police raid, the Forest Town raid, on a

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

party in 1966, which triggered a moral panic and led to the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

government passing the Immorality Amendment Bill of 1967. The Bill criminalised all sexual activity between men, as well as extending the legislation to include lesbians. Following South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994, all discriminatory legislation was repealed. In 2005, the Forest Town home of

Jacob Zuma Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan name Msholozi, and was a former anti-aparth ...

, at that time deputy president of South Africa, was raided by the

Scorpions Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...

in order to obtain documents for his corruption trial. Jacob Zuma, now a former

president of South Africa The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president heads the executive branch of the Government of South Africa and is the commander-in-chief of the South African Nationa ...

, is currently under investigation for fraud, money laundering, racketeering, and a host of other criminal charges.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20060614103125/http://www.wits.ac.za/gala/archives_i.htm Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa Johannesburg Region B {{Johannesburg-stub