Word: johannesburgers
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Recently, the Brandy Kingship of Noordgesig, a Colored (mixed blood) community near Johannesburg, fell open when the local champion was killed in a motor accident. After priming themselves with a couple of fingers of brandy apiece, two new contenders stepped up to compete for his crown. Each deposited ?2 on a table as a sign of good faith, then, at a signal from the local referees, they went to work. At the end of 45 minutes, Contender Eric Forster was well out in front, with a full quart of brandy inside him. He groped unsteadily to his feet, demanded recognition...
...week the Coloreds stood in line outside the Johannesburg branch of the Native Affairs Department. Most were coffee-colored, though some had fair hair. They were shopkeepers and typists, clerks and building contractors. Collectively, they are known in Johannesburg as a quiet, untroublesome and dignified lot who, prizing their semi-privileged status, have kept out of politics and instinctively sided with the white man against the black...
Most of the 142 Colored employees of Johannesburg's Hospital Laundries live in the neat and tidy residential district of Noordgesig, in homes that are better than those in the sprawling slums of the native locations. Last week 66 of the 142 were reclassified as native. This means each must move out of Noordgesig into a native quarter. His children must leave the better Colored schools; he must get a pass to be on the street after dark; he may no longer take a trip out of town without official permission...
...laundry employees are also about to lose their jobs. "Johannesburg Hospital Laundries employ only Coloreds," shrugged one of its managers. "It is obvious that these new natives can no longer work here...
Former Friends. The reclassification program panicked Johannesburg's Coloreds. It affected Coloreds passing for whites and natives passing for Coloreds. But it also affected those who are what they are, and wondered whether they would get justice. Lawyers did a land-office business. Yet merely to apply for appeal required a fee of $28, from peo-ply whose wages seldom run more than $40 a month...