“It put Soweto on the map,” Charles explains. Hector, a 12-year-old schoolboy, was among the first shot dead on 16 June 1976 when police opened fire on a student march. Nearby, at the intersection with Moema Street, the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum commemorates the tragic events of the Soweto uprising. But for the best of Soweto fashion, check out the Box Shop, which showcases up-and-coming local designers. Vilakazi is full of restaurants, costumed dancers, and stalls selling Mandela merchandise and clothes in bright shweshwe fabrics. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s former home, a block away, is marked by a plaque. Mandela House museum, the home of South Africa’s first black president from 1947 until just after his release from Robben Island in 1990, is must-see: full of memorabilia, it shines a light on Madiba’s early family life. Orlando West’s lively artery is the only street in the world to have had two Nobel Peace Prize winners as residents.
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