African Activist Archive

The leaflet reprints "Bay Area banks boycotted, Groups campaigning to end loans in South Africa" by Mark Jacobson from the February 8, 1975 issue of the newsletter of Synapses, published in Chicago. The article says one Friday last November, 2,000 people carrying one-quarter million leaflets descended upon Bank of America branches throughout California. Thousands of depositors stopped and listened to these volunteers explain how Bank of America is the largest California investor in South Africa and also is notorious for neglecting inner city needs in the U.S. Banks making loans to South Africa have been targeted for a withdrawal campaign by church, labor, school and community organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada aimed at ending loans to South Africa and to getting banks to make an explicit public commitment to make no such loans in the future. $top Banking on Apartheid ($BOA) is recommending local banks that have a better record of serving the communities in which they operate, including Hibernia, Western Women's, First Enterprise, Security National Central, and Mechanic's. In South Africa, a government elected by 4.2 million whites controls the lives of 21.7 million blacks. The policy of apartheid creates ethnically separate reserves dependent upon and regulated by white interests; most blacks live in abject poverty in urban slums or "homelands" in the countryside. The leaflet mentions the National Council of Churches (NCC), the NAACP, the YWCA, United Auto Workers (UAW), AFL-CIO, Canadian Union of Public Employees, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, Crocker National, Security Pacific, United California, Wells Fargo, Sumitomo Bank, French Bank, Union Bank, Chartered Bank of London, United Nations, Black South African leaders, the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), Tom Clausen, President Carter, and UN Ambassador Andrew Young.

African Activist Archive

Groups campaigning to end loans to South Africa

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