Meadowlands is a suburb of

Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...

, Gauteng Province,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It was founded in the early 1950s during the apartheid era for black residents from

Sophiatown Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a poor multi-racial area and a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid. It produced some of South Africa's most famous writ ...

History

Meadowlands, also known as Ndofaya, has its origin with the introduction of the '' Natives Resettlement Act, Act No 19 of 1954'' with its aim to move black people out of the centre of Johannesburg from multi-cultural areas such as Sophiatown and the Western Native Townships. The Urban Resettlement Board was created and the forced removals began on 10 February 1955 and would continue until the mid-sixties when most of the new township had been completed. Early residents were separated into new zones of the township based on their ethnic background and identifiable by the street names. The Johannesburg City Council, at the time controlled by the United Party, did not participate in the forced removals but did provide extra land in Diepkloof when space ran out in Meadowlands when black people from the suburbs of Martindale and Newclare needed areas to settle. The Johannesburg City Council did not control the area as it did with

, but would be made to cover the cost of the relocations. By 1968, the Natives Resettlement Board had relocated 22,500 black families and 6,500 single persons in both Meadowlands and Diepkloof and would administer both areas as they had not yet been allocated to any white municipality. The forced move away from Sophiatown inspired Strike Vilakazi to compose '' Meadowlands''. As with many other protest songs of this period, ''Meadowlands'' was made popular both within and outside South Africa by Miriam Makeba. By 1973, now known as Diepmeadow, the administration was taken over by the West Rand Administration Board (WRAB) and by 1978, a Diepmeadows Town Council was formed to run the two townships when they decided not to join Soweto Council.

Notable South Africans From Meadowlands

* Sindi Dlathu, actress known for her role as Lindiwe Dikana on The River. Lived in Zone 10. * Vusi Kunene, actor * Thandiswa Mazwai, singer. Lived some years in her childhood in Meadowlands * Kgalema Motlanthe, third president of South Africa. Lived in Zone 8. * Rapulana Seiphemo, actor * Sibusiso Vilakazi,

Mamelodi Sundowns Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club (simply known as Sundowns) is a South African professional football club based in Mamelodi, Pretoria in the Gauteng province that plays in the Premiership, the first tier of South African football league syste ...

soccer player. * Jacob Matlala, junior

flyweight Flyweight is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing Flyweight is a class in boxing which includes fighters weighing up to and including 51 kg (112 lb) for a title fight. Professional boxing The flyweight division was the last of boxin ...

boxing champion * Trompies, Kwaito music group from South Africa

References

{{City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, selected=regd Johannesburg Region D Townships in Gauteng Soweto Townships