In southern Africa townships were built as segregated urban zones for black people. They were created under colonial and white minority rule policies that controlled movement, confined opportunity, and kept people apart.
I grew up in a different historic black township in Zimbabwe, but Mbare was the first of its kind. It holds a unique place in the nation’s imagination.
Mbare was originally named Harare. But in 1982 that name was reassigned to the capital city that houses it. In its storied past, it was once the heartbeat of black urban life. At its centre is Rufaro Stadium, where Bob Marley and the Wailers famously performed at Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations.
