Forest Town | |
|---|---|
  Forest Town  Forest Town | |
| Coordinates:26°10′19″S28°02′13″E / 26.172°S 28.037°E /-26.172; 28.037 | |
| Country | South Africa |
| Province | Gauteng |
| Municipality | City of Johannesburg |
| Main Place | Johannesburg |
| Established | 1908 |
| Area | |
• Total | 0.64 km2 (0.25 sq mi) |
| Population (2011)[1] | |
• Total | 1,072 |
| • Density | 1,700/km2 (4,300/sq mi) |
| Racial makeup (2011) | |
| • Black African | 29.4% |
| • Coloured | 1.2% |
| • Indian/Asian | 7.7% |
| • White | 58.8% |
| • Other | 2.9% |
| First languages (2011) | |
| • English | 65.5% |
| • Afrikaans | 9.5% |
| • Zulu | 5.5% |
| • Tswana | 3.1% |
| • Other | 16.4% |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
| Postal code (street) | 2193 |
Forest Town, as the name implies, is a leafysuburb ofJohannesburg,South Africa. It lies between the busy thoroughfares ofJan Smuts Avenue andOxford Road, and is bordered to one side by theJohannesburg Zoo.
The suburb was first surveyed on land called Sachsenwald, now known asSaxonwold, in 1908.[2] The name of the suburb is derived from the Sachsenwald plantation.[2]
Forest Town is well known as the scene of a high-profile police raid, theForest Town raid, on agay party in 1966, which triggered a moral panic and led to theApartheid government passing the Immorality Amendment Bill of 1967.[3] The Bill criminalised all sexual activity between men, as well as extending the legislation to include lesbians. Following South Africa'sfirst non-racial elections in 1994, all discriminatory legislation was repealed.
In 2005, the Forest Town home ofJacob Zuma, at that time deputy president of South Africa, was raided by theScorpions in order to obtain documents for his corruption trial.[4] Jacob Zuma, now a formerpresident of South Africa, is currently under investigation for fraud, money laundering, racketeering, and a host of other criminal charges.
In 2019, theJohannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre opened in Forest Town, the centre explores the history of genocide in the 20th century, focusing on case studies from the Holocaust and the 1994Rwandan genocide.[5] The site was previously occupied by theBernberg Fashion Museum, started by two Jewish sisters, Anna and Theresa Bernberg, to house their fashion collections. The sisters bequeathed the property to theCity of Johannesburg on the condition that it be used as a museum or art gallery.[6] In 2020, theJoburg Contemporary Art Foundation, acontemporaryart gallery, opened in the suburb.[7]
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