In 1980 we visited with a Black family in Soweto. Their brick home was nicer than the place we rented in Nairobi. The worst housing we saw was on par with the first place we rented in Nairobi. Soweto was clean, neat and orderly. When we visited the city hall, my wife noticed a line of people out back. "What is that queue for?"
"Oh, that is the old folks getting their pension payments."
We were told that 90% of the families had electricity and 90% of those had refrigerators; the rest had "iceboxes". "Where do they get ice?"
"We have an ice plant here in Soweto." Soweto had a VW dealership that was more modern than any in Nairobi. Our hosts told us that the traffic jam heading out of Soweto on workday mornings was a mess.
In downtown Johannesburg, white & blacks worked together, shopped together and dined at restaurants together. It looked like Atlanta... but a bit more modern and at least as clean & neat.
1980
There was a solidly black middle class in SA during apartheid.