African Activist Archive

Editorial by the Rev. M. William Howard, president of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. The editorial is excerpted from a speech to the International Freedom Mobilization - Summit Conference of Black Religious Leaders on Apartheid on April 18, 1979. Howard says, in early 1977, the Rev. Leon Sullivan succeeded in getting 12 companies to sign Six Principles pledging to improve conditions for Black workers in their South African plants. Howard said these Six Principles were only a first step, and it is time to move beyond them because they are not a formula for social change. The signatory corporations should be urged to adopt a new set of principles addressing White supremacy in South Africa; the principles cannot, and do not propose to, attack the system of apartheid itself. Africans are not struggling to reform apartheid, they intend to abolish that system entirely. They are demanding an end to a system under which they are not regarded as citizens of the land of their birth. Howard says U.S. banks have made more than $2 billion in loans to the South African government, its agencies and to private concerns. This money strengthens the South African military, finances foreign purchases of arms and oil, and pays for equipment designed to make South Africa impervious to outside pressure. Many banks have agreed to stop or limit lending to South Africa because of domestic pressures. The editorial discusses Black and White workers, wages, Bantustans, land, the vote, unions, the U.S. Congress, sales to the police or military, GM (General Motors), Ford vehicles, Mobil Oil, Caltex, investment, the sale of aircraft, heavy machinery, manufacturing, construction, computers, contracts to help build oil-from-coal facilities, withdrawal of U.S. corporations, War Powers legislation, the South African police (SAP), the Back majority, and IBM (International Business Machines).

African Activist Archive

EDITORIAL: BEYOND THE SULLIVAN SIX PRINCIPLES

Creator

Place Created

Date

Type of Item

Length/duration

Description

Publisher

Organization

Coverage Africa

Language

Digital Format

Collection