Daniel Armstrong and Bishop Desmond Tutu outside Tutu's office. While doing a nine-month research project in Zimbabwe, Armstrong traveled to Johannesburg the first week of April 1985. While he was there, Columbia University students, led by the Coalition for a Free South Africa, blockaded Hamilton Hall. The protest was in the news in South Africa. Armstrong called the Columbia student newspaper, The Spectator, and informed them that the students' protest was being reported in South Africa. The paper's editor told him that the then-president of Columbia, Michael Sovern, had claimed in a letter to students and faculty that Bishop Tutu would be against the students' demand for...
Daniel Armstrong and Bishop Desmond Tutu outside Tutu's office. While doing a nine-month research project in Zimbabwe, Armstrong traveled to Johannesburg the first week of April 1985. While he was there, Columbia University students, led by the Coalition for a Free South Africa, blockaded Hamilton Hall. The protest was in the news in South Africa. Armstrong called the Columbia student newspaper, The Spectator, and informed them that the students' protest was being reported in South Africa. The paper's editor told him that the then-president of Columbia, Michael Sovern, had claimed in a letter to students and faculty that Bishop Tutu would be against the students' demand for divestment. Armstrong told the editor that he was scheduled to meet with Tutu that afternoon, and he would ask him where he stood. Tutu told Armstrong that he supported the Columbia students and their demand for divestment. Tutu also said that he was scheduled to do a radio interview with a New York City radio station later that day and he would announce his support for the blockade and Columbia's divestment then. Armstrong had been a member of the Coalition for a Free South Africa before he graduated from Columbia in May 1984.
