The Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United States Was Fueled By Student Activists

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The fervent protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict that have gripped the nation’s conscience in the past weeks, engulfing American college campuses, exemplify deeply held convictions among young people on global issues and their unwavering commitment to justice. Such demonstrations are deeply woven into the fabric of American history. It is why America, after all, is America — the land of the free, where free speech prevails. Often, it is the young who remind us of the power of dissent — of resistance — in shaping our collective future.

In Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America, I trace a century of Black youth activism, from early organizers like Ella Baker in the 1920s to Barbara Johns and Charlie Cobb in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively, to the first glimpses of allyship in The Bates Seven and The Wilmington Ten, all the way to today's generation and the continued fight against police violence and racial injustice. Resist examines this longstanding tradition of student mobilization, a force with far-reaching consequences for this nation. It argues that youth activism is the lifeblood of American democracy, the very essence of the free and enduring nation we inherit today.

The adapted excerpt below — from the Black Power Rises chapter that covers 1970 to 1990 and weaves the formation and rise of the Black Panther Party and its global influence reaching places like South Africa, with the uprising that followed The Wilmington Ten case — details the outset of the students against the apartheid movement in America. One pivotal day in the lives of South African students fighting for their own parity compelled American college students from private universities to HBCUs to stand in the gap for those they did not know but whose parallel struggles they felt. Students then called on their school administrators, Congress, and businesses to divest from companies tied to South Africa — an effort to put pressure on the country’s government to dismantle the segregation system.

The student-led protests played an integral role in igniting a global firestorm condemning the brutality of South Africa's apartheid regime. Their efforts led to Congress passing the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which called for an end to apartheid and placed economic sanctions on South Africa. The bill prohibited the import of South African goods, the sale of arms and military equipment to the nation, and any new investment. The legislation also demanded the release of political prisoners, a lifting of the state of emergency, and the establishment of a non-racial democracy.

As demonstrations intensified across college campuses, American companies began withdrawing from South Africa, contributing to significant economic strain on the apartheid governance. It ultimately led to the end of the regime (after about four years of negotiations) with the nation’s first post-apartheid democratic election on April 27, 1994, where Nelson Mandela — who had been a political prisoner for 27 years and potent symbol of the crusade — became the nation’s first Black president.

Rita Omokha’s Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America comes out on November 19, 2024. It is now available for pre-order.

Three years after Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party and months before the Wilmington boycott, two South African student activists formed the Black Consciousness Movement, calling for an end to the white liberal establishment and advancing Black self-determination and self-reliance.

Co-founded in 1969 by twenty-three-year-old Steve Biko and twenty-five-year-old Barney Pityana, the BCM was inspired by the Black Power Movement and the Party, replicating and adopting its foundational principles of Black pride, educational liberty, and community organizing.

Barney hailed from the Eastern Cape, the second-largest province in South Africa, home to diverse tribes like the Xhosa and Thembu. In 1966, he entered the historically Black University of Fort Hare to study law. In the throes of apartheid, Barney was a founding member of his school’s chapter of Southern African Students’ Organization to promote Black consciousness and self-determination. SASO was formed by his BCM co-founder, Steve, who had campaigned across the country around that time, galvanizing students to create exclusively Black student governments at their campuses.

Born December 18, 1946, Steve Biko grew up in a politically charged family in King William’s Town, South Africa, about 300 miles south of the capital city, Cape Town. His father, Mathew Mzingaye, was a police officer who died when Steve was just four. In the face of abject poverty under the oppressive apartheid regime, his mother, Alice Nokuzola Biko, a domestic worker at Grey Hospital, became a powerful force in Steve’s life. He had three other siblings: two sisters and a brother, Khaya, who joined the local chapter of the Pan-Africanist Congress, a national liberation movement inspired by figures like W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. (The PAC later became a lasting political party in South Africa.) Steve’s outspoken nature and involvement in activism, however, led to his expulsion from grade school, forcing him to attend a private one afterward.

He went on to study medicine at the University of Natal, where he remained heavily involved in student politics. Meanwhile, as the SASO frontman, he began teaching and popularizing the idea of Black Consciousness as the Black Panther Party’s influence fastened. The term had come to pithily encapsulate the effort to empower Black people through reclaiming their identity, building self-reliance, and uniting against oppression.

In 1969, after Barney was expelled from Fort Hare for his political activism, he reconnected with Steve to form BCM.

By this time, they had both been equally supercharged by Nelson Mandela.

The prominent freedom fighter who had become a global symbol of resistance against oppression had been imprisoned for seven years already, serving a life sentence for his anti-apartheid activities. Since the 1940s, Nelson had been organizing campaigns through the nation’s social-democratic political party, the African National Congress. One such demonstration was the 1952 Defiance Campaign, where protesters marched to white-only areas.

Nelson had laid the groundwork and energized many Black South African youths toward a more profound, more intentional activism. His defiance and resilience in the face of brutality instilled in Steve and Barney a steely resolve to continue the fight for justice and equality. Building on Nelson’s decades-long struggle against the nation’s oppressive regime, the duo’s grassroots efforts began clicking into place.

They recruited students to BCM. They circulated and drew inspiration from the Party’s Ten Point Program, emphasizing its self-defense and armed tactics. The social services framework enforced by the Party also influenced how BCM wanted to address the needs of the Black community.

On its face, BCM’s formation was a brazen act of defiance. This boldness becomes even more striking when considering the suffocating reality of apartheid had gripped South Africa since 1948. The term “apartheid” itself, derived from the Afrikaans word for “apartness,” speaks volumes about the systematic segregation and oppression that Black South Africans endured.

Fueled by a legacy of colonial segregation, the apartheid system, like America’s “separate but equal” doctrine, mandated racial separation and denied Black South Africans basic rights and opportunities, effectively confining them to a permanent underclass. This system was enforced through laws like the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act, and the Bantu Education Act, which, respectively, classified people by race, designated separate living areas, and aimed to restrict and inferiorize Black education.

It was rooted in white supremacy by the National Party, a minority government that came to power in 1948. Ruling over a nation where reports estimate demographics during this period at 18 million people of color and 4 million whites, they imposed a strict racial hierarchy that privileged the white minority and systematically silenced the majority non-white population, including Black Africans, Coloreds, and Indians. (“Coloreds” is a South African term for those of mixed-race heritage, with ancestral backgrounds that include indigenous African, European, and Asian or Indian origins).

The National Party’s justification for apartheid was to preserve their white culture and colonial heritage, safeguard resources, and prevent interracial relationships. In effect, to suppress Black empowerment of any kind. Black South Africans were not allowed to live in the same areas as white South Africans. They were prohibited from using the same public facilities, such as schools, hospitals, and restaurants. They were not allowed to vote in elections.

Many who began standing up against apartheid, like Nelson, were either imprisoned or exiled. Still, the systematic oppression fueled the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement. As the group gained popularity among Black South Africans, Steve emerged as its eminent leader and a vocal critic of the segregationist government. His emphatic speeches and poignant writings on Black Consciousness, like “Black is Beautiful,” compelled and propelled the South African liberation struggle, especially among students. His rising profile and growing influence made him a target for the government, which viewed him as a threat to their regime.

In 1973, Steve was banned by the government, prohibiting him from public speaking, attending political meetings, and even leaving his home district. Undeterred, he continued to be a vigorous opponent of apartheid, wielding his pen as his weapon. It was during this time that he wrote the seminal manuscript “Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity.” In it, he argued that Black Consciousness should be embraced as a positive mindset, a way of life that empowers Black people to unite and find pride in their shared identity and cultural heritage. He rejected the notion of imitating white culture and instead emphasized liberation from external control, urging Black people to strive for freedom and true humanity on their own terms.

While Steve’s voice continued to be suffocated by oppressors within South Africa, the fight against apartheid began to resonate internationally. Inspired by Nelson’s tireless campaigning against injustice, even from behind bars since his imprisonment in 1962, and the growing momentum of BCM, local chapters of the Black Panther Party began providing crucial support to the anti-apartheid movement. They used their newspaper, The Black Panther, and educational events to raise awareness about apartheid and garner international support. They donated essential supplies (like food, clothing, and medical aid); organized rallies and protests across America at South African embassies, consulates, and businesses; and spoke out against the oppressive regime. Some leaders even formed alliances with global anti-apartheid organizations and established connections with political groups like the ANC and PAC.

Such allyship only added fuel to the burgeoning global movement for Black liberation, which began to crescendo in 1974. The South African minister of Bantu Education, responsible for the segregated school system for Black students, imposed a discriminatory new rule. The policy mandated that all education be taught in English and Afrikaans, the Dutch colonized language spoken by the white minority.

Founded and funded by the apartheid government in 1953, Bantu schools were already designed to offer Black South Africans inferior education. They were poorly equipped, lacked qualified teachers, and followed a curriculum designed to limit advancement opportunities. Previously, students had learned in their own indigenous languages, like Xhosa, Tswana, and Venda. This new directive was another attempt to suppress their progress and erase their cultural identity.

In response, BCM students decried the blatant attempt to stifle Black South Africans’ cultural identity and disadvantage them educationally. Their stewing outrage reached a boiling point on Wednesday, June 16, 1976. In protest of their poorly funded education that was severely constrained by apartheid policy, students walked out of Morris Isaacson High School and marched about four miles to the South African Police Service station in Orlando, South Western Townships (known as Soweto).

The police were like gods in the Johannesburg metropolitan township, terrorizing Black citizens at any opportune turn. So, this act of defiance by the students, in and of itself, indelibly conveyed an unmistakable message.

And in a forceful display to assert their power, the peaceful student demonstrators were met with immediate violence by SAPS officers. The authorities opened rapid fire on the marchers, fatally gunning down hundreds, including twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson.

The photo of Hector’s lifeless body being carried by eighteen-year-old Mbuyisa Makhubo with Hector’s horrified sister, Antoinette Sithole, by his side turned this moment of protest into a globe-organizing crusade. Soon coined the Soweto Uprising, it led to a formalized and systematic campaign to overthrow the South African government. (Hector’s life and the Soweto Uprising are honored annually on June 16 in South Africa as “Youth Day.”)

Days of ceaseless protesting ensued, spreading to other parts of Soweto.

On June 17, as demonstrations continued across Soweto and other townships, so did the death toll and property destruction (including school buildings), forcing the government to declare a state of emergency.

By that Friday, June 18, protests had spread to other parts of South Africa, including Johannesburg and Cape Town. The protest grew so massive, the government was forced to deploy the army to quell protestors.

By the formal end of the demonstration that Friday, more than 20,000 students had walked out of their schools.

The tremors of the unrest were immediate and lingered long after.

Though he hadn’t organized the uprising, the government blamed Steve Biko, who was already under close surveillance, and the BCM for the rise in political consciousness among Black South Africans. They saw BCM as a key factor in the high schoolers’ continued protests and refusal to return to schools.

A year later, on August 18, 1977, Steve was arrested and detained in Cape Town. He had violated his prior arrest release terms to not travel to certain regions and was taken to the Port Elizabeth police station. There, he was interrogated, severely beaten, and tortured. Steve was denied medical attention and died on September 12 from injuries sustained during his interrogation.

Steve’s death was a tragic blow to the movement.

Yet, his sacrifice, and that of Hector Pieterson and the resulting iconic image, became evocative symbols of the fight against apartheid.

The violence and uprising showcased the country’s systemized racial oppression and sparked international outrage. Before the uprising, many outside of South Africa knew little about the plight of Black South Africans, let alone its similarities to the struggles for racial justice and equality occurring in America. The brutality of apartheid resonated with American activists, including thousands of students who became involved in the anti-apartheid movement. The Black Panther Party’s existing solidarity with Black South Africans bolstered this emerging student movement, fueling more international pressure on the South African government to dismantle apartheid.

Students and their allies across the globe began to mobilize, becoming a powerful force against the South African oppressive regime.

HBCUs, especially, became incubators for anti-apartheid activism across American campuses. These schools and their students had a storied history of social justice—they knew all too well the sting of racial oppression.

They had not only been actively supporting the Black Power Movement, they also provided platforms for intellectual discourse, seeking lasting and actionable solutions, through think tanks like the Institute of the Black World. They also addressed the growing issue of gun violence within Black communities in America. So, this existing commitment to equity naturally extended to the fight against apartheid. With their established networks and experience, HBCUs and their students began raising awareness, organizing protests, and advocating for international sanctions against the South African government.

HBCU students also crystallized the critical values of the anti-apartheid movement in America, drawing upon campaigns from leaders such as Randall Robinson and Mary Frances Berry, who founded the Free South Africa Movement.

Students from Spelman and Morehouse to Howard University and Tuskegee University organized protests, strikes, teach-ins, boycotts, and similar divestment campaigns: They called for their school administrators and American businesses to withdraw their billions in investment from companies tied to South Africa, hoping to cripple the nation’s economy, which would then force the end of apartheid.

They disrupted speeches when South African politicians visited America.

They barricaded schools and other business buildings.

They sent letters of solidarity to South African activists, raised money for the ANC, and organized concerts and other events to benefit them.

On campus lawns, students constructed shantytown replicas that attracted national media attention and reflected the debilitated conditions of Black South Africans. Much like slums, South Africa’s shantytowns, hastily constructed with scrap materials, bore the grim reality of poor sanitation, limited access to essential services, and high crime rates, all due to their unplanned and unregulated nature. They often sprawled onto land never meant for habitation.

HBCU students formed a national coalition to better coordinate student activism against apartheid and raise awareness across all campuses. Other campuses followed suit: the University of California formed the Campuses United Against Apartheid, and Washington University founded Action Against Apartheid.

These coalitions organized impactful nationwide protests, like the boycott of South African goods, and lobbied the government to impose economic sanctions on South Africa.

From RESIST: HOW A CENTURY OF YOUNG BLACK ACTIVISTS SHAPED AMERICA by Rita Omokha. Copyright © 2024 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

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