Mamelodi

Mamelodi, part of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, is a township set up by the then apartheid government northeast of Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. It was established when 16 houses were built on the farm Vlakfontein in June 1953 and later the name changed to Mamelodi, the name given to president Paul Kruger by the Africans because of his ability to whistle and imitate birds, also meaning Mother of Melodies. The Group Areas Act designated Mamelodi as a blacks-only area, though this became moot with the fall of apartheid in 1994. In the 1960s black citizens where forcefully removed from the suburb of Lady Selbourne in Pretoria to Mamelodi, Ga-Rankuwa and Atteridgeville. Anti-apartheid activist Reverend Nico Smith preached in Mamelodi from 1982–1989, and obtained permission to live there himself from 1985–1989. During that period, he and his wife Ellen were the only whites legally allowed to live in Mamelodi. The township still has vastly more blacks than any other group as of 2010.