RacismAnywhereThreatensFreedomEverywhere1.pdf

"RACISM ANYWHERE THREATENS FREEDOM EVERYWHERE": THE LEGACY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. IN BLACK AMERICA'S ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVISM

Author(s): JESSICA O'CONNOR

Source: Australasian Journal of American Studies , December 2015, Vol. 34, No. 2 (December 2015), pp. 44-58

Published by: Australia New Zealand American Studies Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44779733

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44 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

ARTICLES

"RACISM ANYWHERE THREATENS FREEDOM

EVERYWHERE": THE LEGACY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. IN BLACK AMERICA'S ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVISM

JESSICA O'CONNOR

Australian Catholic University

ABSTRACT : Just as opposition to Soviet communism had served as a measure of American patriotism during the Cold War, so too did opposition to apartheid evolve to signify the commitment to racial justice in the United States during the Reagan era. In expanding Jacquelyn Dowd Hall 's "The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past "framework it has been possible to break new ground in the historical analysis of the US anti-apartheid movement. The "long movement" has allowed an historical analysis of the profound role the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement played in the US anti-apartheid movement during the Reagan era. There is a multi-faceted historical connection between the civil rights movement and the peak of anti-apartheid activism in the United States during the 1980s, and it is this connection which this article seeks to uncover and analyse.

The US anti-apartheid movement launched into public consciousness in November 1984, when three prominent African Americans were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, DC. The embassy sit-in marked the beginning of a twelve-month protest in which thousands of citizens were arrested, and local anti-apartheid movements proliferated in cities and universities across the United States. The tactics, reminiscent of the civil rights movement, facilitated media and popular interest in US diplomatic relations with South Africa and came to the forefront of US politics.

Although the role of African Americans in the US anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s was fundamental to its success, the US anti-apartheid movement is a relatively neglected area of study in African American history. Indeed, the role of African Americans in this movement was not considered until Francis Nesbitt's Race for Sanctions: African Americans Against Apartheid, 1946-1994 in 2004. This article analyses the contributions of African American individuals and organisations to US anti- apartheid activism, with particular emphasis on the strategy of linking anti- apartheid to the traditions of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. It adds a new layer to our understanding of how African Americans struggled against apartheid, focusing more attention than has been given previously on the

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 45

legacy of US civil rights in energising black anti-apartheid activism in the United States at the peak of the movement.

The first historical analysis of the US anti-apartheid movement was Robert Massie's Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years, which linked the internal struggles against apartheid in South Africa with anti-apartheid politics in the United States from 1948 to 1994. However, the role of African Americans in the US anti-apartheid movement was not considered until Francis Nesbitt's Race for Sanctions. Nesbitt's book is the only in-depth examination of African American anti- apartheid organisations. The third major historical study of the US anti- apartheid movement, David Hostetter's Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics, is a postmodern approach to social movement theory that concentrates on the shift away from simple black-white politics to multiculturalism in the 1990s, illustrated in the anti-apartheid movement.1 These historians all acknowledge the connection between anti-apartheid activism and the civil rights movement. For example, Massie describes the US anti-apartheid movement as "the natural extension of America's turbulent concern about civil rights and racial justice into the international sphere."2 However, none of these historians examine the use of civil rights memory in the US anti-apartheid movement. This article concentrates on the largely overlooked historical relationship between the two movements. There is a multi-faceted historical connection between the civil rights movement and the peak of anti-apartheid activism in the United States during the 1980s, and it is this connection which this article seeks to uncover and analyse.

The role of African Americans in the US anti-apartheid movement can be analysed within two conceptual frameworks. The first framework focuses on African Americans in the tradition of black internationalism or pan- Africanism. Pan-Africanism emphasises the African diaspora and sees blacks as engaged in a collective struggle against the injustices inflicted by slavery, racism, and colonialism.3 Francis Nesbitt's Race for Sanctions is an example of a study of the impact of pan-Africanism on African American anti-apartheid activists. The second framework in which the US anti- apartheid movement might be studied is that of "The Long Civil Rights Movement," as outlined by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. Hall's thesis draws on the broader connections of the history of African American activism. The "long movement" calls for historians to recast and extend the traditional civil rights era in order to challenge the cultural memory of the "King years" and the linear progression of the struggle to end segregation.4

While these frameworks are not antithetical, the "long movement" allows for a long duree analysis of black freedom movements in the United States. A

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46 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

critical assessment of the use of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the anti-apartheid movement, further, provides an example of the civil rights movement speaking to a contemporary challenge. This analysis demonstrates how the memory of the civil rights movement can be "powerful, dangerous," and a "form of forgetting." Remembrance in anti-apartheid activism can also be understood as a challenge to the New Right's distorted appropriation of the "classical" phase of the civil rights movement and a King "frozen" in 1963, which erased any "political bite." Adopting Hall's extended timeline therefore provides a template for a nuanced analysis of the ways in which the legacy of King was used by anti-apartheid activists not only for their own agitation, but also to challenge the ideological basis of conservative "colour- blindness."

Anti-apartheid activism in the United States emerged with the establishment of the apartheid regime in South Arica in 1948. During the 1940s and 1950s, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and A. Philip Randolph were leaders of the Council of African Affairs. For example, in 1945 the Council organised a campaign to raise funds for South Africans during a famine; 5,000 people attended the rally at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.5 In 1946, the Council supported striking miners and directed attention to the African National Congress's struggle against the South African government as it established apartheid, at a meeting attended by 19,000 people in Madison Square Garden.6 However, during the anti-communist raids of 1950, the State Department revoked Robeson's passport and the organisation was ordered to submit its membership records to the government. In 1951, Du Bois was indicted as a foreign agent.7 African American anti-apartheid activism then became a side issue of the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s anti-apartheid views crystallised after he witnessed the independence of Ghana in 1957. After his return to the United States, King joined the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), the leading civil rights organisation focused on Africa. In 1957 King co-sponsored a declaration for world leaders to support "world-wide protest against the organized inhumanity of the government of South Africa."8 King's anti- apartheid advocacy expanded in 1 962, when he met with the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, Albert Luthuli. Together they encouraged economic sanctions against South Africa. By 1964 King had even begun to rethink his position on the efficacy of nonviolence in South Africa. For example, at an address in London while he was travelling to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, he remarked:

In South Africa even the mildest form of nonviolent resistance meets with years of imprisonment, and leaders over many years have been restricted and silenced and imprisoned. We can understand how in

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 47

that situation people felt so desperate that they turned to other methods.9

It was during this address that King announced his support for the tactic of economic sanctions. On 10 December 1965 King addressed a Human Rights Day rally in New York, stating, "to list the extensive economic relations of great powers with South Africa is to suggest a potent nonviolent path." 10 The speech illustrated King's growing radicalism; not once did he mention traditional forms of nonviolent resistance by South Africans.

However, it was not until the 1970s, with the dramatic rise of black elected officials in the United States, that anti-apartheid activism became a central concern for African American leaders.11 These black elected officials created

new black-oriented political institutions, most notably the Congressional Black Caucus, an organisation representing black interests in Congress, and TransAfrica. Established in 1977, TransAfrica became the leading African American foreign policy lobby organisation, concentrating on issues of US policy towards Africa and the black diaspora.

The idea of a black foreign policy lobby in the United States had been suggested as early as 1959. Congressman Charles Diggs suggested that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest and largest African American civil rights organisation, establish an office to influence US policy on African issues.12 TransAfrica was established during the Black Leadership Conference in 1976, as events coincided to push the injustices in South Africa into full public view. Particularly notable on this front was the Soweto uprising in South Africa that resulted in hundreds of school children being shot and killed, and the rise of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement (PRWM) in the United States protesting the company's investment in South Africa.

Both the Congressional Black Caucus and TransAfrica were central players in the US anti-apartheid movement during the Reagan era. They sought to pressure the US government and companies to divest in the racist state in order to weaken the ability of the apartheid regime to control blacks.13 However, Reagan and US business used the Sullivan Principles to challenge the viability of the goals of the US anti-apartheid movement.

In 1977 Reverend Leon Sullivan, the only African American on the board of directors of General Motors, outlined six steps for US companies in South Africa to comply with, including desegregation of their business operations. The Sullivan Principles featured in the Reagan administration's African foreign policy, Constructive Engagement.

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48 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

The policy of Constructive Engagement was conceived by American Chester Crocker in an article in Foreign Affairs in 1980. 14 The strategy employed incentives to encourage moderates in the South African National Party to gradually reform apartheid through positive economic and diplomatic engagement. The ultimate goal of Constructive Engagement was to prevent Soviet expansion into southern Africa. The Reagan Administration believed that punitive measures, like those advocated by anti-apartheid activists, would have a destabilising effect on South Africa, isolating its government and radicalising the black opposition.15

By early 1981, African Americans were concerned with the new Reagan administrations' direction on racial matters in both the United States and

South Africa. For example, Nathaniel Clay's article in the African American newspaper Chicago Metro News, "Blacks have a Right to Oppose Reagan's Africa Policy," outlined African Americans' concern about the administration's approach to civil rights in South Africa:

It is heartening to see the Black community rising up in anger at the attempt by the Reagan Administration to clean up South Africa's image … whether we are successful or not, Black Americans have a moral obligation to oppose Reagan at every turn in his tilt towards four million whites on a continent of half a billion blacks}6

The 1981 Annual TransAfrica fundraising dinner also raised enough money to extend its anti-apartheid activism into major US cities. African American anti-apartheid organisations began to work in tandem after the Reagan administration approved an International Monetary Fund loan of $1.1 billion to South Africa in 1983. 17 TransAfrica circulated copies of a State Department cable revealing South Africa's plan to apply for the loan. Seven Congressional Black Caucus members responded with a letter to the Secretary of Treasury Donald Regan, asserting, "a vote for a substantial IMF loan to South Africa would be yet another counterproductive application of

1 Ä

this Administration's political commitment to Constructive Engagement." Caucus member Walter Fauntroy additionally led a march outside the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King's civil rights organisation, also claimed "approval of the loan implies international affirmation of racist policies of the South African government."19

On November 21, 1984, four prominent African Americans met with the South African ambassador to the United States at the South African

embassy in Washington, DC. They demanded the release of all political prisoners in South Africa, including Nelson Mandela, and a new constitution for "one man, one vote," refusing to leave until their demands were met.20

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 49

Three were arrested as one addressed the media waiting outside the embassy. After their release from jail, the group announced the formation of the Free South Africa Movement, a coalition of individuals, organisations, and unions dedicated to overturning apartheid in South Africa.21

The Free South Africa Movement began a twelve-month protest in which protesters were arrested daily at the South African embassy. From 1984 anti-apartheid sentiment gained momentum in the United States with a series of events coinciding, including the re-election of Reagan, increasing violence in South Africa, and the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to South African bishop Desmond Tutu. These events allowed Randall Robinson, executive-director of Trans Africa and instigator of the first embassy sit-in, to capitalise on this momentum and create a mass anti-apartheid movement to pressure Congress to pass sanctions legislation, as well as to challenge Reagan's approach to domestic race relations.

Randall Robinson selected the other members of the embassy sit-in, not only because of their previous anti-apartheid activism, but also because of their historical civil rights connections. The Congressional Black Caucus member, Walter Fauntroy, had previously been the Washington branch director of the SCLC and was involved in many of the major civil rights campaigns.22 Mary Frances Berry was chosen because of her position as a board member of the US Commission on Civil Rights, the agency monitoring the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She was well known by African Americans at the time because Reagan had removed her from the position and replaced her with a conservative administration- friendly commissioner. 23 Georgetown University Law Professor Eleanor Holmes Norton had been an organiser for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was highly involved during the civil rights protests.24 Norton's involvement in civil rights continued when President Jimmy Carter appointed her as the first female chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, another organisation subsequently weakened by the Reagan Administration.25

One of Robinson's goals in establishing the Free South Africa Movement was to challenge the Reagan administration's misappropriation of King's legacy. Reagan's rhetoric on Martin Luther King, Jr. disconnected contemporary racial tensions from those of the past, by locating the civil rights movement within an idealised narrative of American progress.26 The King remembered by Reagan advocated that people be judged "not by the colour of their skin but the content of their character" – nothing more.27 The conservative civil rights rhetoric situated Reagan's political agenda, attacking programs of "reverse-racism" and civil rights protections, within the context of the "true" goal of the civil rights movement: colour-blind

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50 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

equality.28 Reagan's civil rights rhetoric and the conservative misappropriation of King were used to attack policies and programs beneficial to African Americans, and freed the federal government of responsibility for improving the social, political, and economic condition of African Americans.

However, ironically, the anti-apartheid activists' also, at times, skewed the memory of King to enhance their own agenda. Many of the connections with the civil rights movement were consciously developed: in particular, comparisons of Bishop Desmond Tutu and King. For example, the Chicago Metro News reported the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Tutu, "generally viewed as the Martin Luther King … of his country."29 As Chester Crocker observed in his autobiography, Randall Robinson simplified the civil rights movement to fit into catchy anti-apartheid phrases.30

While opposing the racial policies implemented by Reagan, the African American anti-apartheid movement was prepared to validate the appropriation of King for their own agenda. To address this limitation, Trans Africa endeavoured to emphasise the differences between South African brutality and the brutality witnessed in the pre-civil rights American South. Robinson published an article in Ebony in 1985, in which he attempted to clarify the differences between the civil rights movement and anti-apartheid activism. When recalling his 1976 trip to South Africa, Robinson described the experience as "another world, closed off, dramatically crueller than the old south of my memoiy."31 However, the media and anti-apartheid activists continued to view South Africa in a "black vs. white" framework, and the attempts to widen African American understanding of apartheid in order to challenge Reagan's civil rights rhetoric were undermined.

The correlation between anti-apartheid activism and the civil rights movement was further entrenched with the embassy arrests of civil rights legends. Rosa Parks, who sparked the civil rights movement in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, was arrested in the South African embassy protests. Coretta Scott-King was arrested for the first time in her life with her children at the South African embassy in June 1985.32 As they were detained they sang the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor, civil rights activist, and a leading advocate for anti-apartheid activism as a board member of TransAfrica, was also arrested. The executive-director of SCLC, Joseph Loweiy was arrested three days after the formation of the Free South Africa Movement.33

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 5 1

In the twelve months of protest in Washington the total number of arrests amounted to over 5,000, and included nearly every member of the Congressional Black Caucus. The success of the tactic resulted in the district attorney dropping all charges to "prevent the clogging of the courts."34 The act of civil disobedience, reminiscent of the civil rights movement, spread into anti-apartheid campaigns throughout the United States, including in cities such as Seattle, New York, and San Francisco.

The correlation between anti-apartheid activism and the civil rights movement continued on the anniversary of King's assassination. As Simon Anekwe wrote in the black newspaper New York Amsterdam News, anti- apartheid protests "[had] all been in keeping with Dr. King's "appeal for action."35 For example, Columbia University students marched to Hamilton Hall and chained shut an entrance to the building. The students demanded the university disinvest in companies doing business in South Africa. The students remained at the entrance for three weeks, until university officials threatened them with expulsion. Once the blockade was over, the students adopted civil rights tactics by marching to a rally at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem.37 The rally was led by Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, who had once been chief of staff to Martin Luther King.

In April 1985, the New York Times reported a total of twenty separate sanctions bills pending in the US Congress.38 US media interest in the violence in South Africa assisted in maintaining support for the US anti- apartheid movement and in increasing pressure on the administration and Congress to address economic sanctions. Reagan signed Executive Order 12532, introducing minor economic sanctions on South Africa to placate Congress on foreign policy, which was traditionally a matter for the executive.39 The Order banned the sale of computers to South African government agencies, prohibited nuclear cooperation, and banned imports of the Rand.40 The Reagan administration furthermore began to pressure South African president P.W. Botha to introduce substantial change. 1

However, Botha's response was a public relations disaster for the Reagan administration, with Botha announcing he was not prepared to institute meaningful reforms, stating at one point, "I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on the road to abdication and suicide."42 After the speech, US National Security Advisor Robert MacFarlane admitted to Crocker that the speech reminded him of US segregationist Bull Connor and suggested that Congressional economic sanctions were now all but inevitable. To retain executive control, Vice President George H.W. Bush told the 77th Annual Convention of the NAACP that "apartheid must end."43 The administration then leaked that

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52 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

Reagan was considering appointing an African American ambassador to South Africa.

Parallels between Bishop Tutu and King continued to be made by a number of African Americans. During the "Family Affair" convention in Atlanta in August 1985, music and radio pioneer Jack Gibson introduced Tutu as "an echo of the bravery that propelled the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."44 In January 1986, Tutu received the Key to the City of Newark, New Jersey, where more than half the population was African American. During the ceremony Tutu told the largely black audience, "Racism anywhere threatens freedom everywhere."45 This statement echoed King's assertion that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."46

During a sermon he delivered at St. Marks United Methodist Church in Harlem, Tutu asked his audience not to overlook domestic problems: "often it is wonderfully easy to be good to people who are over there and yet you have problems here."47 The African American understanding of Tutu within the framework of King was most clearly demonstrated in January 1986, however, when Tutu was awarded the Martin Luther King Peace Prize, on the first observance of the Martin Luther King Holiday. His speech opened with the words, "I tremble as I stand in the shadow of so great a person," acknowledging their shared commitment to justice, peace, and reconciliation, before closing with a quote from King: "Free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last."48

Tutu's adoption of King's rhetoric made comparisons inevitable. In Atlanta, Tutu also preached at King's pulpit, the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and pledged a "campaign of civil disobedience against unjust laws."49 Coretta Scott-King saw the day as "the launching of a new and intensified phase in the struggle to end apartheid."50 The celebration of the first Martin Luther King Holiday as a day of anti-apartheid protest established a tradition that was to continue until the end of the US anti-apartheid movement.

This representation of anti-apartheid activism within the framework of King and the civil rights movement was successful in dividing the Republican Party and permitted the passage of the Comprehensive Anti- Apartheid Act of 1986. The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was passed over Reagan's presidential veto, with 37 Republicans crossing the floor against the president.51 After the passage of the Act, the US anti-apartheid movement faltered. Black leaders attempted to reinvigorate public support by linking racism in the United States with apartheid, and continued to invoke Martin Luther King, Jr. as African Americans were confronted by a resurgence of white racist violence.

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 53

The outbreak of racial violence in the United States after 1986

enabled African Americans to develop anti-apartheid campaigns that were increasingly associated with, and dedicated to, King. Martin Luther King Day, in particular, became a focal point for anti-apartheid activism. In January 1986, six members of the Free South Africa Movement staged a sit- in at the Shell Oil Company office in Washington. Headed by Randall Robinson, the group demanded Shell's parent company Royal Dutch/Shell Group disinvest in South Africa. The sit-in was timed to mark the birth of Martin Luther King and was supported by African American civil rights organisations, including the SCLC, the NAACP, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.52

The legacy of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. also extended into US diplomacy in South Africa. Edward Perkins, a career diplomat, was the first African American ambassador to South Africa, appointed by Reagan in 1986. The appointment was to be symbolic both for the South African government and African American leaders, perhaps representing a new direction for Constructive Engagement, and was supported by Reverend Leon Sullivan and Coretta Scott-King.53

As ambassador, Perkins instituted a new US approach to South Africa that focused on developing relations with liberation organisations. When asked by a reporter why he attended a black South African protest, Perkins responded, "Do you remember Martin Luther King Jr. 's Letter from Birmingham Jail? I am here to represent the United States because injustice is being done."54 The role of King in his understanding was further illustrated when Perkins commissioned a bust of King "to stand for perpetuity" at the US embassy in Pretoria.55

In the United States the second Martin Luther King Holiday in 1987 was marked by small anti-apartheid protests, including a shantytown built in the lobby of Citicorp in New York. 6 The protesters "hoped that such non- violent actions [would] provide an appropriate commemoration of Martin Luther King's life."57

Anti-apartheid activists created controversy after the Martin Luther King Holiday Commission issued an advertisement asking people to become "a part of history" by having their names laser-inscribed by IBM computers on a commemorative time capsule.58 IBM, historically the largest computer supplier to South Africa, had officially divested from South Africa in 1987, however their products continued to be sold in South Africa and the company came under attack from anti-apartheid activists.

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54 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

Martin Luther King Day continued to be a rallying point for anti- apartheid demonstrators and linking South African leaders with the legacy of King. The 1 987 Martin Luther King International Award was bestowed upon Alan Boesak, a "coloured" clergyman from South Africa.59 Boesak, with Tutu, was one of the few black leaders still advocating non-violence. Los Angeles executive-director of the SCLC Mark Ridley-Thomas said of Boesak, "He has given witness [to King's philosophy of non-violence] with his work and his life."60 Indeed, he was "one of the leading exponents of Martin Luther King, Jr. 's thought."61

Anti-racism activists also highlighted the contemporary connections between apartheid and racial problems in the United States. For example, after a march in Forsyth County Georgia, marchers were attacked by white supremacists and members of the Ku Klux Klan with stones and bottles. This attack came one month after three black men were viciously beaten – one fatally – by a white mob in Howard Beach, New York. A second march in response to the attacks was organised by Coretta Scott-King, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Joseph Lowery. The march attracted an estimated 20,000 people under the banner reading, "No Compromise – End US and South African Racism."62 During the march, participants sang civil rights anthems like "We Shall Overcome" and chanted "Forsyth County, have you heard? This is not Johannesburg!"63 The second march had to contend with 5,000 racist counterdemonstrators carrying a banner, "A Trade Proposal for South Africa: Your Whites for our Blacks."64 The continuing race problems in the United States illustrated during the Forsyth County marches became a focus of anti-apartheid activism.

African American students from the University of Michigan used the 1987 anniversary of the assassination of King to march to the black community, Ann Arbor, to illustrate the connection between domestic racism and apartheid, in response to racial attacks on campus and continuing low black enrolment.65 The march followed a failed sit-in, which had protested the University's refusal to award an honorary degree to Nelson Mandela.66 Mandela at the time was designated an international terrorist outlaw by the State Department. To commemorate Martin Luther King Day in 1987, the Washington Office on Africa coordinated the "First Annual Martin Luther King Symposium on Southern Africa." More than 1,500 people convened in Washington to attend the three-day conference.67 Jesse Jackson was a keynote speaker at the rallies. Two thousand people attended the second Symposium in 1988.68

In New York, on the twentieth anniversary of King's assassination in 1988, there was a march "in his spirit against US investment in South Africa."69 On the 25th anniversary of the March on Washington, 55,000

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 55

people travelled to the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his "I have a Dream" speech in 1963. 70 Many civil rights leaders attended, including Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Reverend Joseph Lowery and Congressman Walter Fauntroy. The celebratory march had shifted the emphasis of the original to include the downfall of apartheid.71

Although Jesse Jackson advocated a policy to classify apartheid as a terrorist state, the campaign strategy of the Democratic Party in the 1988 presidential elections was to avoid addressing black and other minority concerns; this meant the issue of apartheid was largely ignored.72 In 1989, the incoming President George H.W. Bush quickly distanced himself from the term Constructive Engagement and criticised apartheid. Bush hoped to quieten anti-apartheid protest in the United States without isolating his right- wing support. The election of Bush also coincided with a change in leadership in South Africa. F.W. de Klerk granted Nelson Mandela unconditional release from prison and legalised opposition groups. This marked the beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa, as well as the anti-apartheid movement in the United States.

Just as opposition to Soviet communism had served as a measure of American patriotism during the Cold War, so too did opposition to apartheid evolve to signify the commitment to racial justice in the United States during the Reagan era. As Republican Senator Robert Dole complained, apartheid had "become a domestic civil rights issue."73

Studies of the US anti-apartheid movement have traditionally overlooked the unique position of African Americans in the struggle. While Francis Nesbitt undertook the challenge to address this gap his study left particular phenomena unexplored. In expanding Hall's "long movement" framework, it has been possible to break new ground in the historical analysis of the US anti-apartheid movement. The "long movement" has allowed an historical analysis of the profound role the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement played in the US anti- apartheid movement during the Reagan era. This article also opens the door for future scholars to approach the history of US anti-apartheid activism from a new perspective, one which recognises the importance the civil rights legacy in the US anti-apartheid movement.

NOTES

1 David Hostetter, Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006), 258. Robert Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid

Years (New York: Doubleday, 1997), xxvii. Tunde Adeleke, "Black Americans and Africa: A Critique of the Pan-African Identity

Paradigms," International Journal of African Historical Studies, 31, no.3, (1998): 505.

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56 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

4Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Fast," Journal of American History, 91(4), (2005), 1237. Francis Nesbitt, Race for Sanctions: African Americans Against Apartheid, 1946-1994, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 5. 6 Ibid, 6. 7 "National Committee to Defend Du Bois and Associates," Plaindealer, 5 October 1951, 1. 8 James Pike and Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter to Ambassador Chester Bowles Nov. 8, 1957" http://mlk- kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/letter_to_ambassador_chester_b owles /, accessed 3 October 2013.

Martin Luther King, Jr. "Speech on South Africa in London Dec. 7, 1964" http://www.rfksafilm.org/html/speeches/pdfspeeches/13.pdf, accessed 3 October 2013.

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Address of Martin Luther King on December 10, 1965 to the South Africa Benefit of the American Committee on Africa"

http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/mlks-address-about-south-africa, accessed 25 July 2013.

The dramatic rise of black elected officials is documented by the following historians, Kevern Verney, Black Civil Rights in America (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis, 2012), 89. Kerry Haynie, African-American Legislators in American States, (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2012), 2. Manning Marable, Beyond Black and White: Transforming African-American Politics, (New York, NY: Verso, 1995).

Nesbitt, Race for Sanctions, 35. Economic sanctions are penalties applied by one country on another. Divestment is the

antithesis of investment, or the removal of business from a country. Disinvestment refers to economic boycotts to pressure a company to divest in South Africa.

Chester A. Crocker, "South Africa: Strategy for Change," Foreign Affairs, 59 no.2, (1980): 323-351.

15 Ibid, 327.

Nathaniel Clay, "Blacks Have a Right to Oppose Reagan's Africa Policy," Chicago Metro News , 19 September 1981, 3.

Nathaniel Clay, "South Africa: A Sick Joke on All of Us," Chicago Metro News , 13 August 1983, 3.

"Congressional Opposition to IMF Loans to South Africa," Excerpt from the letter from Seven Members of the Congressional Black Caucus Oct. 19 1982, (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, 1982), 2. 19 Joseph Lowery quoted in, "Lowery Opposes IMF Loan to South Africa," Chicago Metro News , 4 December 1982, 4.

Randall Robinson, Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America, (New York, NY: Plume, 1999), 152. 21 Courtland Milloy, "Blacks Form Free S. Africa Movement," Washington Post , 24 November 1984, CI. 22 Charles W. Carey, Jr., African American Political Leaders, (New York, NY: Facts on File, 2004), 95.

Mary Frances Berry, And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America, (New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 206. 24 Joan Lester, Eleanor Holmes Norton : Fire in My Soul, (New York, NY : Atria Books, 2003), 110.

Hal Marcovitz, African-American Leaders: Eleanor Holmes Norton , (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2004), 59. 26Dowd Hall, "The Long Civil Rights Movement," 1238. 27 Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/i-have-dream, accessed 14 October 2013.

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AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES 57

28 Denise Borstoff & Steven R. Goldzwig, "History, Collective Memory, and the Appropriation of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Reagan's Rhetorical Legacy," Presidential Studies Quarterly , 35 no.4, (2005): 662. "Tutu Wins Nobel Peace Prize," Chicago Metro News , November 1984, 1. Chester Crocker. High Noon in Southern Africa : Making Peace in a Rough Neigbourhood,

(New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1992, 258. Randall Robinson, "South Africa," Ebony, May 1985, 133. Laurel Miller, "Coretta King Arrested at Embassy," Washington Post , 27 June, 1985, C3. "Congressman and Rights Leader Arrested at South African Embassy," New York Times ,

27 November 1984, A20. 34 Karyln Barker and Ed Brüske, "Charges Against 1 1 Arrested in Embassy Sit-in Dropped," Washington Post , 1 December 1984, Bl. 35 Simon Anekwe, "Anti-Apartheid Rally for Dr. King" New York Amsterdam News, 13 April, 1985, 2.

Larry Rohter, "Protesters at Columbia Unwavering," New York Times, 19 April 1985, B3. Larry Rohter, "Columbia Protest Ends, but New Action is Vowed," New York Times, 26

April 1985, B4. Bernard Gwertzman, "Congress Turns its Eye on Race in South Africa," New York Times,

10 April 1985, A20. 3 Ronald Reagan, "Executive Order 12532 – Prohibiting Trade and Certain Other Transactions Involving South Africa, Sept. 9, 1985" http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/dtSearch/dtisapi6.dll?cmd=getdoc&DocId=5360&Index=*efd 0fee5343905cffa0f0 1 58ab4a75 1 e&HitCount=9&hits= l+2+3+d+e+f+ lbc+66f+72c+& Search

Form=F%3a'Reagan_Public_Web'search'speeches'speech_srch_form.html, accessed 1 7 October 2013. 40 Ibid.

Ronald Reagan, "Remarks to Reporters on the Signing of Executive Order 12532, Sept. 9, 1985"

http://www.re agan.utexas.edu/dtSearch/dtisapi6.dll?cmd=getdoc&DocId=5359&Index=,,,efd 0fee5343905cffa0f0 1 58ab4a75 1 e&HitCount=5&hits=44c+5b5+6e2+8bc+8ca+&SearchFor

m=F%3a'Reagan_Public_Web'search'speeches'speech_srch_form.html, accessed 26 October 2013.

42 P.W. Botha, "Rubicon Speech August 15, 1985" http://www.nelsonmandela.Org/omalley/index.php/site/q/031v0 1 538/04W0 1 600/051v0 1 63 8/0 61v01639.htm, accessed 13 October 2013. 43 George Bush quoted in James Dickenson, "Bush at NAACP Convention, Defends Policy on S. Africa," Washington Post, 4 July 1986, A 12.

Jack Gibson quoted in, "Freedom Fighter," Chicago Metro News, 24 August 1985, 2. 4 Tutu quoted in Elizabeth Kolbert, "In Newark, Tutu Praises Jersey's Divestiture," New York Times, 13 January 1986, A4.

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail 1963" http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/letter-birrningham-city-jail-0, accessed 1 3 October 2013, 3. 4 Desmond Tutu quoted in Elizabeth Kolbert, "In Newark, Tutu Praises Jersey's Divestiture," New York Times, 13 January 1986, A4. 48 Desmond Tutu quoted in Craig Prentis, "MLK, Jr. and the Making of an American Myth" in Ed. Colleen McDannell, Religions of the United States in Practice, (2), (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 323.

Desmond Tutu quoted in "Tutu takes Pulpit for King," Chicago Tribune, 20 January 1986, 1.

50 Coretta Scott-King quoted in, David Treadwell, "Tutu pays Homage to King in Atlanta," Los Angeles Times, 20 January 1986, A8.

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58 AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

51 Richard Lugar, "S. 2701: Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986" http://thomas. loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d099 :40 : ./temp/~bdZ Y yR: @@@L&summ2=m&, accessed 13 Ocober 2013.

Walter Fauntroy quoted in "Apartheid Foes End Sit-in at Shell Oil," Washington Post , 16 January 1986, c5. Edward Perkins and Connie Cronley, Mr Ambassador: Warrior for Peace , (Norman, OK:

University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 262. 54 Ibid, 321. 55 Ibid, 3.

"The Need to Cut All Bank Ties to S. Africa," SCAR News, 1 February 1987, 1. ^American Friends Service Committee, "Human Rights Day Protest Challenges Corporations," United States Anti-Apartheid Newsletter (2), (Philadelphia, PA, 1987), 4. 58 American Friends Service Committee, "Tears and Cheers," United States Anti-Apartheid Newsletter (2), (Philadelphia, PA, 1987), 3.

Edward Boyer, "Award to Clergyman to Top King Week," Los Angeles Times, 1 1 January 1987, B3. 60 Mark Ridley-Thomas quoted in Edward J. Boyer, "Award to Clergyman Will Top King Week," Los Angeles Times, 11 January 1987, B3.

Jack Jones, "Activist S. African Cleric Boesak Honoured for Anti-Apartheid Protests," Los Angeles Times , 20 January 1987, 12.

Coretto Scott-King, "Forsyth and Howard Beach: Still a Long, Long Way to Go," Los Angeles Times, 28 January 1987, A5.

Kathy McShea, "Marching for Civil Rights in Forsyth," SCAR News, 2 January 1987, 4. 64 Ibid, 4.

Africa Fund, "Student Movement Hits Domestic Racism and US Corporations," Student Anti-Apartheid Newsletter (New York, NY, Spring 1987), 2.

ACOA, "Campuses Across Nation Hold Actions," SCAR News, 1 May 1987, 5. Damu Smith and Imani Countess, "The First Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium

on Southern Africa" Washington Office on Africa Educational Fund , (Washington, January 1987). 68 African Friends Service Committee, "Washington Office on Africa Second Annual Symposium a Huge Success" United States Anti-Apartheid Newsletter , (Philadelphia, PA, 1988), 3.

Joyce Pumick, "Protesters and Worshippers Join in Honoring Dr. King in New York," New York Times, 19 January 1988, Al.

Janet Crawley, "Politics Joins March on Capital," Chicago Tribune, 28 August 1988, 1. Richette Haywood, "Nation's Eyes Focus on the Poor, Jobless, Peace and Apartheid

during D.C. March," Jet, 12 September 1988, 4. Paul Taylor, "Jackson Presses Dukakis on Spending, S. Africa," Washington Post, 26 May

1988, A4. Robert Dole quoted in, Yossi Shain, "Multicultural Foreign Policy" in Diversity and US

Foreign Policy : A Reader , Ed. Ernest Wilson, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), 121.

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