Students v. Apartheid: I have Witnessed a Struggle That Spans 40 Years

This is not the first time that America’s elite campuses have stood up to lead the fight against Apartheid. I was there in the first battle in 1977-1978.

In the academic year spanning 1977-1978 I was a Freshman at Harvard College, and I found myself thrust into a journey of political awakening. I was confronted for the first time with the brutal reality of the struggle going on against the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Harvard students march to protest South African Apartheid, Sspring 1978. [Source: The Harvard Crimson]

I won’t say that I was radicalised, but I was certainly educated, thanks to the Harvard students’ Southern Africa Solidarity Committee (SASC). Our goal was to force the university’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) to demand that Harvard divest itself fully from all companies doing business with South Africa.

This move to force divestment is not unlike the modern-day Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, or to the current protests sweeping across college campuses today; the scenes unfolding across my social media feed cannot help but make me look back over the past 46 years and think about how our protests were so similar, and yet so different.