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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Anti-Apartheid Student Protests

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By the 1980s, opposition to apartheid was one of the most visible issues on American college campuses. Activists demanded an end to bank lending to the South African government and protested visits by South African sports teams. Ultimately, they sought to cut any economic ties with South Africa, and succeeded in pressuring Congress to pass sanctions against South Africa in 1986, against President Reagan’s veto
A student “shanty town” outside of Sproul Hall built during the UC Berkeley Anti-apartheid protests. In March of 1985, Pritchett and other activists decided to start a sit-in. They hauled their sleeping bags to Sproul Hall and renamed the plaza “Biko Plaza" in honor of slain South African activist Steve Biko. Day after day, night after night, students were attracted to the Sproul steps. Soon there were thousands of attendees and hundreds camping out, a level of activity the campus hadn't seen since the '60s.
On Apr. 24, 1986, anti-apartheid protesters gathered on campus to urge the UC Board of Regents to divest from South Africa. Above, police face a crowd of students, one of whom is holding a sign with Mandela’s face on it. Ironically, the same government that put him in prison also helped export the anti-apartheid movement to UCLA. The limited opportunities for blacks to get an education in South Africa meant many young people went abroad to study, and UCLA more than any other institution became a haven for them, said William Worger, a UCLA history professor.
Student at Wits University flee as police fire tear gas at them during an anti-apartheid protest rally in 1989. The education system was part of this apartheid-capitalist system that dehumanised people in ghettos of poverty. Despite, and because of, strong state repression, an era of youth politics ignited on June 16 1976. The political tide turned and made liberation from a colonised mind-set and socioeconomic suppression thinkable
Anti-apartheid protesters block building entrances at UC Berkeley in 1986. What happened in South Africa shows why. From 1960 through the 1980s, anti-apartheid activists were unable to persuade governments to push back against South Africa’s oppressive racial laws. American presidents, for example, were loath to act because South Africa was an important ally and regional policeman during the Cold War. And so activists in the United States and elsewhere turned to divestment to undermine apartheid, refusing to invest in companies that did business in South Africa.
A student “shanty town” outside of Sproul Hall built during the UC Berkeley Anti-apartheid protests. Police attempted to crack down, arresting 158 protestors. In response, 10,000 students boycotted classes, and celebrities, from Kurt Vonnegut to Alice Walker came to Berkeley to show their support. The protest had become a movement. Anti-apartheid hero Bishop Desmond Tutu visited the Greek Theatre on campus that spring: “As God looks down on you today, he’s saying, hey, hey, have you seen my children in Berkeley? Eh? Don’t you think that they’re something else?”
Anti-Apartheid protesters are pictured on April 2, 1986 in Berkeley erecting a shantytown in front of California Hall at the University of California where more than 100 demonstrators were arrested the next day when police moved in. But divestment was not seen as a way to hurt the South African economy, or even to punish U.S. companies. In 1966, minister and activist George M. Houser, who helped found the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), a group dedicated to opposing colonialism in Africa, wrote a strategy paper advocating what he called “disengagement”— both withdrawing existing investments and prohibiting new ones.
A statue of USC’s mascot with a Anti-apartheid sign on his shield at rally on the campus of USC 1986. That was the campaign in the 1980s demanding divestment from companies doing business in South Africa.” It was an indirect strategy, but an effective one; because foreign companies played an important role in South Africa’s economy, their withdrawal undermined the country’s government. In conjunction with the massive resistance by South Africans, divestment forced companies to leave and not return until apartheid ended
A speaker addresses the crowd of students gathered to protest Harvard's investment in South African holdings during the late 1980s. A sign reads: "Put Apartheid Out of Business." Harvard University, April 25, 1985. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, these students made headlines by urging University administrators to pull Harvard’s investments from firms that did business with the apartheid government in South Africa, though Harvard never fully divested, despite continued protests.