African Activist Archive

Article by Jody Parsons, NC-ICCR staff, about church and community protests against recent participation in loans to Chile and South Africa at the 1977 annual shareholders' meeting of BankAmerica Corporation. A demonstration against loans to the repressive Vorster and Pinochet regimes was held outside the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, world headquarters of the Bank of America (BofA); church and community leaders spoke, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) distributed a letter to all shareholders. An open letter to the Bank of America signed by 30 Northern California religious leaders was released, calling for an end to these loans. The Northern California Interfaith Committee on Corporate Responsibility (NC-ICCR) held a press conference at the Grace Cathedral drawing attention to human rights violations in Chile and South Africa and the rationale for opposing bank loans to these countries; media response to the event was excellent. Bank of America's recent participation in a $110 million loan to the Vorster government was addressed by Jean Hendrickse, a black woman from South Africa, on the proxy of the Sisters of the Holy Family. Members of NC-ICCR have since met with BofA management and are monitoring their South African loan policy review. The article mentions Sr. Barbara Blake, Religious Sisters of Mercy, Province of Chicago, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) in New York, Chairman of the Board Chauncey Medberry, Sr. Jean Hartman, Presentation Sisters of San Francisco, shares voted, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank President Tom Clausen, and apartheid.

African Activist Archive

NEWS STORY ON CHURCH SHAREHOLDER ANNUAL MEETING, APRIL 22, 1977

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