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Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics

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Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: MOVEMENT MATTERS: AMERICAN ANTIAPARTHEID ACTIVISM AND THE RISE OF MULTICULTURAL POLITICS. David L. Hostetter, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation Directed by Professor James B. Gilbert, Department of History. American organizations that opposed apartheid in South Africa extended their opposition to racial discrimination in the US into world politics. More than three decades of organizing preceded the legislative showdown of 1986 when Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto to enact economic sanctions against the apartheid regime. Drawing on the tactics and moral authority of the civil rights movement, the antiapartheid movement mobilized public opinion with familiar political symbols while increasing African-American influence in the formulation of US foreign policy. Three conflicts in particular shaped American antiapartheid activism: the debate between those holding an integrationist vision of the civil rights movement versus the advocates of a Pan-Africanist view as expressed in the Black Power movement; the tension between the antiracist credibility American leaders sought to project to the world and the anticommunist thrust of American foreign policy which led to a tacit alliance with South Africa; and the dispute over whether nonviolence or armed liberation provided the best strategy for ending apartheid. Three antiapartheid organizations that debated and dealt with these conflicts were the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and TransAfrica. Each group worked against apartheid for more than a decade, combined direct action with other tactics, and included antiapartheid activism in larger efforts concerning Africa and US foreign policy. The efforts of these organizations provide a window through which to examine the conflicts that marked the antiapartheid struggle. Cultural expressions reinforced public sentiment against apartheid. Novels, plays, movies and music provided a bridge for Americans who strove to understand the struggles of those who lived under apartheid. Via the page, stage, screen, and recording studio, apartheid’s opponents found a platform to transmit their message to a broad audience of Americans. The similarity of apartheid to American racial segregation provided activists with metaphors to mobilize constituencies that had opposed American racism. Direct action in particular helped dramatize American entanglement with apartheid. By extending the moral logic of the civil rights movement, the antiapartheid movement was able to invoke the themes of equality and freedom central to American civil religion. MOVEMENT MATTERS: AMERICAN ANTIAPARTHEID ACTIVISM AND THE RISE OF MULTICULTURAL POLITICS By David Hostetter Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2004 Advisory Committee: Dr. James Gilbert, Chair Dr. Gary Gerstle Dr. Sharon Harley Dr. Paul Landau Dr. Alfred Moss ©Copyright by David L. Hostetter 2004 DEDICATION Dedicated to my parents, and all who struggled to end apartheid. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. First Corinthians 13:9-13 For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and bondage of fear, that is a secret. Alan Paton Many people contributed to this dissertation, helping me to keep facing the glass even when I feared it was too dark to see. My thanks to all who assisted me and facilitated my intellectual sojourn. At the University of Maryland my advisor James Gilbert expertly guided me through each phase of this process; his suggestions deepened my analysis and strengthened my argument. Alfred Moss provided inspiration and encouragement. Bill Bravman and the late Marie Perinbam shaped my ideas about Africa and its importance in the world. Gary Gerstle, Sharon Harley, and Paul Landau provided insightful criticism. Mary Kay Vaughan and Ann Jimenez helped me navigate the bureaucratic shoals on which I often foundered. The Department of History as well as the Committee on Africa and the Americas provided crucial financial support for my research. Prior to my years at Maryland, my ideas and commitments were shaped at George School, principally by history teacher Francis Bradley. At Juniata College members of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, particularly Andrew Murray, William Vocke, and the late Martin Clark, prepared me to think critically while acting globally. The late Frederick Binder challenged my intellect as well as my ideals. ii Much of the research for and organization of this dissertation took place while I was teaching at Goshen College. My history colleagues John Roth, Steven Nolt, and Lee Roy Berry helped me to keep my cultural analysis serviceable. Jan Bender-Shetler’s editorial suggestions were especially useful. The staff of the Good Library and the Mennonite Historical Library provided priceless assistance by helping me to gather the many sources I consulted. The staff people of the American Friends Service Committee Archives, TransAfrica, and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University were all extremely helpful and professional. Marcia Segal gave guidance on how to track down the last pieces of the puzzle at the Library of Congress. My colleagues at the College of Southern Maryland, especially Christine Arnold-Lourie and Victoria Clements, have shown me how to balance teaching with the pursuit of scholarship. My friend Allen Smith prodded me to think like a historian who cares enough about activism to be critical of it, while Alex Winter and Bonnie Bick reminded me not to succumb to the paralysis of analysis. My parents, Abram and Patricia Hostetter, who indulged my insistence that we spend family vacations visiting every historic site listed in the AAA Tourbook, and thus are largely responsible for my engagement with history, have been more supportive than I could have imagined. The legendary forbearance of my siblings Andrew (deceased), Rebecca and Samuel, who shared those historical field trips whether they liked it or not, as well as my sons, Benuel Hostetter and Taylor Johnson, who now suffer the same fate, allowed me to piece together my vision of history. My wife Suni Johnson has been infinitely patient, and was often more assured of the eventual success of this project than I. Without her it would have been impossible. iii Though it sometimes seemed like it was a thousand centuries in coming, the dawn of this dissertation is no longer a secret. Free at last, free at last… iv INTRODUCTION Through the Glass Starkly: Americans Confront Apartheid To list the extensive economic relations of the great powers with South Africa is to suggest a potent nonviolent path. The international potential of nonviolence has never been employed. Nonviolence has been practiced within national borders in India and the United States and in regions of Africa with spectacular success. The time has come fully to utilize nonviolence through massive international boycott which would involve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Japan. Millions of people can personally give expression to their abhorrence of the world's worst racism through such a far-flung boycott…The time has come for an international alliance of people of all nations against racism." Martin Luther King Jr., December 10, 19651 Apartheid, Afrikaans for apartness, is the term for the system of racial segregation by which the white minority in South Africa oppressed the black majority and other people of color. From 1948 through 1994, apartheid served as the operating principle of government in South Africa. Because of the global outcry against apartheid as the world’s most egregious example of racism, it remains a term of political opprobrium years after its official demise. The term continues to be invoked in books, articles, and speeches to emphasize the political gravity of issues such as the continued segregation of American education and housing, the oppression of lesbians and gays, the devastation caused by AIDS, the world-wide threat of environmental destruction, the global 2 maldistribution of wealth, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resilient resonance of 1 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (Address to the South Africa Benefit of the American Committee on Africa at Hunter College, New York City, 10 December, 1965) American Committee On Africa (ACOA) Records, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Microfilm, Part 2, Reel 17, Frame 553. Hereafter referred to as ACOA Records. 2 Listed below is a sampling of titles that invoke apartheid: Z. Jaffrey, AIDS in South Africa: The New Apartheid. (London: Verso, 2001); 1 the term reflects the searing reality of apartheid while underscoring the success of the global antiapartheid movement in shaping the vocabulary of political culture. Martin Luther King Jr. stands out among the most renowned American opponents of apartheid. King’s 1965 assessment of the apartheid regime’s vulnerability to international sanctions and condemnation proved, in the end, to be correct. It took, however, more than twenty years for the US to implement fully the kind of sanctions King advocated. King consistently spoke out against apartheid during his dozen years of prominence as the leading voice for African-American civil rights. Beginning in 1957, he lent his name to the cause and spoke often in support of antiapartheid campaigns.3 In his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the American civil rights leader connected his efforts to those of African National Congress President Chief Albert Lutuli of South Africa; Lutuli had been awarded the same prize in 1960.4 King even tried to travel to South Africa to dramatize the connection between the struggles for racial justice there and in the United States, but the apartheid government denied him a visa.5 Titus Alexander, Unraveling Global Apartheid: An Overview of World Politics.
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