A Tribute to Nelson Mandela: Free South Africa

Contents: THE POLAROID CAMPAIGN • THE BOSTON COMMUNITY ORGANIZES AGAINST APARTHEID • THE STUDENT DIVESTMENT CAMPAIGN • SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN'S DAY-AUGUST 9 • LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES • KEEP SANCTIONS UNTIL DEMOCRACY • NELSON MANDELA TRIBUTE • AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS TIMELINE • FUND FOR A FREE SOUTH AFRICA (FREESA) • CREDITS AND THANKS • RESOURCES • THE NATIONAL ANTHEM: NKOSI SIKELEL' IAFRIKA • THE FREEDOM CHARTER • The Massachusetts movement to disengage U.S. society and business from apartheid began in October 1969 when two courageous workers at the Polaroid Corporation, Caroline Hunter and Ken Williams, protested that company's involvement in the South African pass system through the "Instant I.D. 2 System." The Boston Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa (BCL5A) was formed after the 1976 Soweto uprising. BCLSA included representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) and Boston-area solidarity and student groups. The student divestment movement in Massachusetts began in the early 1970s with demonstrations at Harvard University led by Law School student Randall Robinson and Divinity School student Chris Nteta. In 1977, Hampshire College became the first college in the U.S. to divest its endowment of holdings in firms with investments in South Africa. Smith College followed suit, and demonstrations, protests and sit-ins were organized by students at many other campuses, including Tufts University, Brandeis, M.I.T, Boston University, Clark University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The pamphlet includes an excerpt from the Women's Anti-Pass Campaign Song, 1956. In 1976, inspired by ANC and Zimbabwe liberation movement leadership, State Representative Mel King introduced a "selective purchase bill" to prohibit the state from purchasing South African, Rhodesian and Portuguese colonial goods and to restrict use of Massachusetts ports for imports from these areas, and to deny tax and other privileges to businesses with trade or investment ties to them. The pamphlet mentions the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, Themba Vilakazi, the banning of Winnie Mandela, a boycott of the First National Bank of Boston, TransAfrica, Willard Johnson, Councilor Charles Yance, the Boston Free South Africa Movement, the Krugerrand, Shell Oil, Charles Laquidara and Katy Abel of WBCN Radio, George Wald, Steve Lewis, Karen Fields, Bill Sutherland, Marily Richardson, the Deak-Perrera Company, M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Bishop Desmond Tutu, Women for Racial and Economic Equality, MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, the Gulf Company (Gulf Oil), Lilian Ngoyi, Sen. Jack Backman, Bruce Bolling, Saundra Graham, Michael Dukakis, Worcester Coalition for Southern Africa, Committee for Health Rights in South Africa (CHISA), Harvard Southern Africa Solidarity Committee, Mozambique Support Network, Mobilization for Survival, the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC), Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, Oxfam America, Andrew Mlangeni, Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, and Mayor Raymond Flynn.