4 Lessons on Organizing From the Anti-Apartheid Movement

June 16 is national Youth Day in South Africa, and it marks the anniversary of the Soweto Uprising. In 1976, the South African system of racial segregation, apartheid, dominated the country. In Soweto, a township that borders Johannesburg, Black schoolchildren went on strike to protest a law requiring that they be taught in Afrikaans. They viewed Afrikaans as what Desmond Tutu referred to as the “language of the oppressor.” Students refused to go to school, and on that fateful day in June, thousands of children took to the streets. They were confronted by heavily armed South African police, who opened fire on them. The true number of deaths is unknown because the government tried to alter the totals, though estimates go as high as 200. Rioting continued for the rest of that year.

The Soweto Uprising reignited resistance against the apartheid government, after years of deceptive calm in South Africa. It also helped create a massive worldwide movement opposing apartheid, as its violence and ugliness was put on display. 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.

Today, climate activists, Palestinian solidarity activists, and anti-racists have all looked to the anti-apartheid movement for lessons in effecting change. In a 2012 article for Rolling Stone, 350.org cofounder Bill McKibben wrote that “Once, in recent corporate history, anger forced an industry to make basic changes. 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. McKibben applies that same strategy to fossil fuel companies and the climate crisis.

Divestment is certainly a powerful tactic and one of the lasting legacies of the anti-apartheid movement. Protests against corporate activity became more commonplace because of the anti-apartheid movement, and divestment has yielded results, normalizing the idea that fossil fuel companies are inherently bad actors. However, the anti-apartheid movement has a host of other lessons that it can offer activists about effective organizing at the grassroots level.

Explore the linkages between issues

Bad histories of the anti-apartheid movement portray it as a nostalgic throwback to the civil rights movement that tugged at American heartstrings. Mitch McConnell, then a freshman senator, explicitly described it as such in misleading comments on why he voted for sanctions in 1986. In reality, while anti-racism was a central pillar of opposition to apartheid, the movement was about lots of different things. South Africa was a rogue nuclear state, so anti-nuclear activists were drawn to the issue. The South African government fostered wars in neighboring Angola and Mozambique, so pacifists and anti-Cold War activists saw the apartheid government as an enemy.

This was critical because once activists embraced the decentralization of the anti-apartheid movement, they also had to accept that certain issues would resonate more effectively with certain groups. As the Midwest became the Rustbelt in the 1980s, activists there made hay out of the fact that South African steel producers were allowed to export to the United States at the same time that steel jobs were disappearing at home. In the South, the similarities between Jim Crow and apartheid mobilized civil rights groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to boycott South African coal.

Take action to build solidarity

One of the most visible anti-apartheid campaigns was against the South African gold coin, the Krugerrand, which was sold abroad to coin collectors and people who wanted gold money on hand. The coin became a symbol of apartheid because South Africa depended on mining, but its mines also depended on exploiting cheap Black labor. Krugerrand boycotts aimed at retailers became normal in the 1970s and 1980s. In all likelihood, individual boycotts did not harm the South African economy, and the coins continued to be sold in the United States until 1985. But encouraging people to take action helped keep people involved in the broader struggle against apartheid. It also presented an opportunity to educate people about the realities of apartheid and amplify their message.

Educate people at every chance

Apartheid was a remote and distant issue for most Americans, and even those Americans who did visit South Africa were unlikely to see its ugliness. The South African government, aware that apartheid was seen as odious, ran a very efficient propaganda campaign internationally. Organizers couldn’t assume that people would be automatically familiar with apartheid, and they had to counteract the messages coming from apartheid’s apologists with their own education and outreach. This meant a lot of educational work in small venues: documentary showings, talks, reading groups. It was slow and boring work in a lot of ways, but it was also the only way to actually create any long-term awareness of apartheid. Media coverage is too fickle and too short-lived to generate an enduring campaign. The killings in Soweto unleashed a great deal of energy, but it had to be sustained long after the crackdown against schoolchildren ended.

Emphasize the economic dimensions

Economic injustice is powerful and reaches into every facet of life. Because it’s so big, it can also be hard to fully see and perceive, and Americans aren’t used to talking in terms of class. Anti-apartheid activists found ways to draw out those threads. One activist who opposed bank loans to South Africa, Prexy Nesbitt, emphasized the “need to build on contradictions inherent in banking (redlining, racist hiring within banks) and see the full impact of banks on all aspects of American life. The BLC [Bank Loan Campaign] should be part of a more general analysis of social contradictions in our society as a whole.” These kinds of critiques drew people in. Conversations today about climate change and systemic racism often draw on the economic dimension of these issues.

Ultimately, apartheid ended in 1994 after years of negotiations between the African National Congress and the apartheid government led to free elections. Today, the struggle for housing justice, labor rights, and freedom from police violence is still happening in South Africa, much as it is in the United States. Looking back at what worked can guide our struggles today.

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