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.