Anti-apartheid movement in the United States
[3] On the other hand, state and federal governments were reluctant to support the call for sanctions against South Africa due to a Cold War alliance with the country and profitable economic ties.
[6] Led by Alphaeus Hunton, the CAA published educational content and lobbied the federal government and the United Nations for economic disengagement from South Africa.
[7] The massacre fomented a connection between the civil rights movement, the defiance campaign for African liberation, and the resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa.
[6] In 1969, a group of anti-apartheid activists, including the ACOA and Representative Charles Diggs Jr. (D-MI) challenged SAA's entry into the United States, claiming that such travel would violate domestic civil rights laws of nondiscrimination.
[10] The case was subsequently taken to court, and though it remained unresolved, activists leveraged efforts at blocking SAA's federal route to opposing South Africa's broader apartheid rules.
Under the Truman and Eisenhower administration, the U.S. government took a reactionary role against South Africa's apartheid system, with leaders accepting the legitimacy of white supremacy in an attempt to maintain the flow of governmental and business relations.
The ACOA participated in civil rights groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality and the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) in pressuring businesses to divest investment from South Africa.
[6] As hypocrisies of the U.S. government became apparent in the reaction to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Rep. Ron Dellums of California and Rep. John Conyers of Detroit introduced the first divestment legislation to the U.S. Congress in 1972, paving the way for subsequent campaigns against bank loans to South Africa.
[9] The U.S. anti-apartheid movement gained rapid momentum after the Soweto uprising of 1976, which was a series of student-led demonstrations against the government's decree of imposing Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in all black schools.
Led by Randall Robinson, TransAfrica organized protest movements throughout the United States, including demonstrates outside the South African embassy that resulted in 5,000 Americans being arrested.
Universities, banks, businesses, and local governments also began to withdraw their ties to South Africa and push members of Congress to impose more stringent measures.
[14] Students and faculty members protested, demonstrated, and signed petitions to pressure their institutions’ board of trustees to divest of South Africa-related securities.
[25] The group consisted of more than sixty U.S. artists and athletes, including Tony Bennett, Bill Cosby, and Muhammad Ali, who refused to perform in South Africa until the apartheid was dismantled.
[29] Written by Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker, the policy called for easing economic sanctions and improving trade relationships to gradually steer South Africa away from the apartheid system.
[7] Developed by Reverend Leon Sullivan, the code called for non-segregation of races in the workforce, fair employment practices, equal pay, increased training programs, promotion potential for nonwhite South Africans, and improved quality of life standards for employees.
[32] Although the Sullivan Principles were intended to promote desegregation and improve conditions for black South African workers, they were condemned by U.S. anti-apartheid activists as being reformist and irrelevant to the structural issues of the apartheid.
Though Reagan endorsed the "spirit" of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in helping U.S. firms fight apartheid from within South Africa, Regan believed that harsh economic sanctions were not the best course of action.
