End U.S. Support for South African Apartheid and End Racism at Home

Contents: Background... What is Apartheid? • U.S. Involvement in South Africa • In the Bay Area-Recent Actions in the Anti-Apartheid Movement • South Africa-Historic Outline of Black African Resistance • What We Can Do • Brochure urges people to join the Anti-Apartheid Contingent in the Spring Mobilization For Peace, Jobs and Justice on April 20 and to attend the benefit performance of "Homeland" on April 21 at Laney College in Oakland. At the Mobilization on April 20, 1985 in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and other cities, hundreds of thousands of people will march and rally to protest government policies that are destructive to human life. The Reagan Administration continues to erase past initiatives in favor of affirmative action and social justice; those policy shifts have especially negative impacts on Black, Latino and Asian people. The Anti-Apartheid Contingent of the Spring Mobilization, protesting U.S. support for apartheid in South Africa and racism at home, reflects the unity of all who support rights to self-determination, political independence and social justice worldwide. The brochure says, under apartheid, Black South Africans cannot vote, own land, or use their own natural resources. The South African government has declared four bantustans "independent," stripping eight million people of their South African citizenship. The white minority government intends to make all 10 bantustans independent, virtually making all Black African foreigners in their own land; only the Israeli and South African governments recognize the bantustans as legitimate nations. The brochure says U.S. corporations and banks have invested more than $15 billion dollars in South Africa and now dominate several vital South African industries: transportation, energy and communications. These companies include Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chrysler, Citicorp, Coca-Cola Exxon, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, General Motors (GM), Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Crocker National Bank, Texaco and United Technologies. Last November, San Francisco voters approved Proposition "J," directing the City and County to withdraw some $337 million in pension funds invested in South Africa. Also in November, the San Francisco Longshoremen's Union, ILWU Local 10, refused to unload South African cargo, triggering explosive growth of a mass movement in the Bay Area. A daily picketline was established during the noon hour in front of the Pacific Maritime Association building in Oakland, demanding that PMA stop all shipments from South Africa. Recent demonstrations in the Bay Area have included a picket in San Francisco to protest promotion of travel to South Africa, a protest against South African ambassador Bernardus Fouri at the St. Francis Hotel, pickets demanding the closing of offices of South African Airlines, and a symbolic burning of pass books by women in Oakland, in sisterhood with African women. On March 15 in front of IBM headquarters in Oakland, a demonstration protested IBM's role in South Africa, organized by Children Against South African Apartheid. People are invited to sign and circulate a Free Nelson Mandela petition, join the cultural boycott of artists who have visited and/or performed in South Africa, boycott Krugerrand sales, join a picket line at a South African embassy, and join a picketline to protest handling of South African cargo. The brochure discusses human rights, education, IBM (International Business Machines), computers, Anglo-American Corporation, African Explosive and Chemical Industries (AECI), the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Burroughs, Sperry Rand, Control Data, Honeywell, migrant labor, police, the Atomic Energy Board, Citibank, Morgan Guaranty, cobalt 60, the illegal occupation of Namibia, African Resource Center, the Bay Area Free South Africa Movement, the San Francisco Anti-Apartheid Committee, the Campaign to Shut Down South African Airlines, Stop Banking on Apartheid, and Artists Against Apartheid.