What is "boipatong"

Boipatong is a township near Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, South Africa. It was established in 1955 to house black residents who worked in Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging.

Boipatong means "the place of hiding" in the Sesotho language. Boipaong's expansion is in tandem with the growth of Afrikaner Nationalism and the South African discrimination policy called apartheid.

Boipatong along with other surrounding townships was a pool of cheap labour for the steel industry, ISCOR. ISCOR was built mainly as part of job creation and poverty eradication for the white working class. Although small it was one of the places where the anger of the black people was felt during the marches of the 1960s against the carrying of passes.