Housed in the old Market Building, and part of the cosmopolitan hub that is the Newtown Cultural Precinct, MuseuMAfricA was opened in 1994 as the first national museum to offer a truly modern take on the complex history of South Africa. The best permanent exhibit is “Tried for Treason,” an evocative display using video interviews, old radio broadcasts, newspaper headlines, and photographs to tell the tale of the Treason Trial (1956-61), which put, among others, Nelson Mandela behind bars on Robben Island.
“Johannesburg Transformations” includes walk-through re-creations of shacks, a miners’ dorm, and a shebeen (illegal drinking house). As you explore these makeshift rooms, you are accompanied by a soundtrack comprising some well-selected numbers from the musical giants that Sophiatown and Soweto spawned, like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.