Race for Sanctions : the Movement Against Aparteid, 1946-1994/ Francis Njubi Nesbitt University of Massachusetts Amherst
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-2002 Race for sanctions : the movement against aparteid, 1946-1994/ Francis Njubi Nesbitt University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Nesbitt, Francis Njubi, "Race for sanctions : the movement against aparteid, 1946-1994/" (2002). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 912. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/912 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UMASS. DATE DUE NOV ! 8 ?no6 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST RACE FOR SANCTIONS: THE MOVEMENT AGAINST APARTEID, 1946-1994 A Dissertation Presented by FRANCIS NJUBI NESBITT Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2002 W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies Copyright by Francis Njubi Nesbitt 2002 All Rights Reserved RACE FOR SANCTIONS: THE MOVEMENT AGAINST APARTHEID, 1946-1994 A Dissertation Presented By FRANCIS NJUBI NESBITT Approved as to style and content: William Strickland, Member Robert Paul Wolff, Member ohn Higginsoi#0utside Member Chair Esther MA. Terry, Department 7 Afro-American Studies ABSTRACT RACE FOR SANCTIONS: THE MOVEMENT AGAINST APARTHEID, 1946-1994 FEBRUARY 2002 FRANCIS NJUBI NESBITT, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI MA., UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME MA., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor John H. Bracey, Jr. movement from its emergence in the This study traces the evolution of the anti-apartheid and its through the civil rights and black power eras radical Diaspora politics of the 1940s movement that transformed US foreign policy. maturation in the 1980s into a national counter-hegemonic discourse in the radical Chapter one traces the emergence of this repression through government African Diaspora politics of the 1940s and its the government's efforts to reestablish mtervention. Chapter two takes a close look at and co-opting African-American leaders discursive hegemony m the United States by that included covert and overt CIA organizations through "enlightened paternalism" the re- journals. Chapter three examines funding and the establishment of anticommunist what became known as the civil rights emergence of anti-apartheid sentiment during of the four and five look at the radicalization movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Chapter IV black freedom movement and the development of an anti-apartheid discourse and culture in the 1970s. Chapter six examines the emergence of TransAfrica —the black lobby for Africa and the Caribbean and its challenge to Reagan's "constructive engagement" policies. Chapter seven examines the Free South Africa Movement and the revival of direct action to pressure Congress to pass anti-apartheid sanctions. Chapter eight looks at role of the Congressional Black Caucus in passing sanctions against South Africa over President Reagan's veto. And finally chapter nine examines the impact of sanctions on the release of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues from prison and his eventual election as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. v CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT iv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. COLD WAR AND APARTHEID 7 3. COLD WAR ALTERNATIVES 53 4. THE MOVEMENT AGAINST. APARTHEID 72 5 . "BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY": BLACK POWER AND PAN AFRICANISM 127 6. "IT'S NATION TIME": PAN AFRICANISM AND AFRICAN LIBERATION 149 7. TRANSAFR1CA 200 8. FREE SOUTH AFRICA MOVEMENT 246 9. RACE FOR SANCTIONS 274 10. DISMANTLING APARTHEID 309 11. CONCLUSION 337 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This study examines the role of African Americans in the global anti-apartheid movement which emerged with the effort to impose economic sanctions against South Africa at the first General Assembly of the United Nations in 1946 and ended in 1994 with after South Africa's first democratic elections. The study argues that although African Americans of many ideological orientations were involved in trying to influence US foreign policy toward South Africa, the majority fell into three broad 1 ideological camps: left, nationalist and liberal. Each of these perspectives has a distinct history and was represented in the anti-apartheid movement with varying intensity depending on the general state of race relations in the United States. This study seeks to show that the anti-apartheid movement emerged from the black internationalist politics of the 1940s; survived the anti-communist crusades and the decline of white liberal support in the 1950s and 1960s; and reemerged as a black-led interracial movement in the 1980s. Studies of the anti-apartheid movement fall into two broad categories: those that focus on the anti-apartheid movement per se; and studies of black internationalism in general. Studies of the anti-apartheid movement itself, like Love (1985), Shepherd (1977), Massie (1997) and De Villiers (1995) tend to focus on the role of white liberals in the movement. Studies of black internationalism like Walters (1993), Magubane (1987), Von Eshen (1997) Plummer (1996) and biographies like Baldwin (1995), Home (1986;, Robinson (1998) and Duberman (1989), do a better job of covering the role of African Americans in the movement but do not focus on the anti- apartheid movement per se thus providing a blurry and fragmented picture. 1 A major difference between the two approaches is that the black and people of African internationalist perspective foregrounds the role of Africans Clair Drake, Francis descent in the movement. Scholars like Hollis Lynch, St. Walters frame the Korengay, Barnard Magubane, Randall Robinson and Ronald African activity in the African movement in the context of the long history of Pan on African Affairs (1937- Diaspora. They focus on organizations like the Council Conference on Africa, the African Liberation 1955), the American Negro Leadership Movement and Day Coordinating Committee, TransAfrica, the Free South Africa a record of opposing racial oppression other African American organizations that had war. Organizations like the National in South Africa since the second world the National Negro Congress, the Association for the Advancement of Colored People, churches were among the first National Council of Negro Women and the black U.S, the United Nations and the organizations in the United States to call on the sanctions on South Africa after the international community in general to impose the official policy in 1948." white supremacist National Party made apartheid the study of the anti-apartheid While the black internationalist approach to has attempted a comprehensive history movement tends to be more informed, no study movement from 1946 to 1994. Most of the of the role of African Americans in the other literature are chapters in books on anti-apartheid studies in black internationalist and short journal articles. This study fills topics or passing references in biographies the anti-apartheid movement by placing it in this gap in the historiography of the American anti-colonial politics of African- context of the evolving Pan Africanist and black how the movement emerged in radical leaders in the twentieth century. It shows and the civil rights leaders in the 1960s politics of the 1940s, was adopted by Africa in a multi-racial coalition for South nationalists of the 1970s before becoming and strategies reflected the continuity of black leadership the 1980s. The study shows South Africa Movement direct action tactics by the Free m the adoption of non-Solent connections between the the ideological and organizational in the 1980s. It examines Philip Randolph, Paul and like W.E.B. Du Bois, A. early anti-apartheid activists activists like Martin Luther King Jr. with the later Eslanda Robeson, Malcolm X and legislators like Charles Jackson, Randall Robinson and Stokely Carmichael, Rev. Jesse Dellums. Diggs, Walter Fauntroy and Ron destabilize between the internal struggle to The study also delineates the ties external campaign for politieal, in South Afinca and the the raeist apartheid regime struggle of heart of the movement was the eeonomie and eultural sanetions. At the Th,s internal movement Afriea to end white supremacy. b.aek Afncans m southern the critical link that gave the international kvel and was the catalyst for actions a, divtded into efforts whole. The external level can be coherence to the movement as a mtlitary bases, material of African Umty to provde coordinated by the Organization movement which movements; and the Diaspora and diplomatic support for liberation and providing direct atd sanctions against the regtme focused on seeking international was closely connected to the Th,s Diaspora movement to liberation movements. where the efforts of the Afftcan the United Nations continental movement through South AMca from most and evenhral expnlston of Mock of nations led to the isolation UN agencies. parallels anti-apartheid movement trajectory of the In the United States, the commumcations revolution that brought nghts movement and the tha, of the US civil and world even, mto people's information abon, national