The Economics of Nonviolent Protest

November 15, 2023

Beginning in 1948, the white-majority National Party of South Africa began codifying the harsh systems of racial segregation that had existed in South Africa since its colonization. Known as apartheid, this institutionalized segregation mobilized a new generation of leaders within the South African organization known as the African National Congress (ANC) to launch a larger liberation movement. Committed to fighting for Black South African rights, by the early 1950s leaders within the ANC, like Nelson Mandela, were promoting nonviolent demonstrations, strikes, boycotts and acts of civil disobedience in protest of South Africa’s white regime.

ANC leaders drew upon the nonviolence teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who before leading India to independence from Britain in 1947 had spent over 20 years in South Africa honing his ethics and nonviolent protest tactics against white colonial rule. Gandhi’s teachings and the ANC‘s liberation mission was not lost on organizations in America fighting for similar equality goals. Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin helped create the American pacifist organization known as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) with George Houser and others who were influenced by Gandhi’s nonviolence teachings. In 1953, and in support of the ANC’s mission of resistance, Rustin and Houser founded the American Committee on Africa, one of the first national organizations dedicated to informing the American public about anticolonial struggles in Africa.

Button, "Freedom Now," circa 1960, created by the Congress of Racial Equality. / THF166827

Rustin’s organizational abilities also made an impression on a young Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who brought Rustin on as an adviser during his Montgomery bus boycott, a protest campaign that saw King transform from a local minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to a national leader on civil rights. Rustin proved vital to King, providing him with a deeper understanding of Gandhi’s nonviolent tactics, which Rustin had studied in India. As King’s assistant, Rustin took on a variety of roles, including proofreader, ghostwriter, philosophy teacher as well as nonviolence strategist. In December 1956, Rustin proposed to King that he create an organization that would bring together Black leaders across the American South under a common banner in the fight for civil rights. With Rustin’s help, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that would be the driving force behind King’s civil rights work until his death in 1968.

Button, "Practice Nonviolence," circa 1965, indicating support for Dr. Martin Luther King's nonviolent tactics. / THF8434

While fighting for civil rights at home during the early 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. also grew more and more unsettled with what he saw unfolding in South Africa. After the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, where nearly 70 nonviolent protestors were killed by police, as well as the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders, King pushed for what he believed to be the only nonviolent solution to South African apartheid — an international economic and political boycott of the apartheid government. In large part, political activists across the United States echoed his call for action, demanding divestment and targeting large corporations that not only profited off the American people but also from doing business with South Africa. An early target, first protested by Students for a Democratic Society in 1965, was Chase Manhattan Bank, which loaned the South African government millions of dollars.

Button, "Chase Manhattan Partner in Apartheid," circa 1965, created by Students for a Democratic Society. / THF166804

In 1970, two Black employees at Polaroid, Caroline Hunter and Ken Williams, discovered on their way to lunch one day a mock-up of an ID for the South African Department of the Mines that contained a picture of a Black co-worker with a fake African name. Realizing Polaroid products were being used to produce passbooks that helped identify Black individuals in South Africa and uphold the apartheid system, Hunter and Williams created the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement to organize a boycott of the company. Taking pride in being a “progressive” corporation, Polaroid launched a PR campaign to preserve its image, even after firing Hunter and Williams, and started new initiatives for its Black South African workers that did little to address systemic problems. Polaroid did not fully divest from South Africa until the late 1970s, eventually publicly pressured into being one of the first major American companies to do so.

"No Bullshit: Boycott Polaroid" Button, circa 1970-1975, created by the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement. / THF196993

The 1970s saw boycott pressure placed on other large corporations, like automotive manufacturer General Motors and computer supplier IBM, both companies whose products the apartheid government relied on to function. Also included in this targeting was beverage company Coca-Cola, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. By the mid-1980s, Atlanta had become the center of opposition for the anti-apartheid movement in America, and it’s there where the southeast regional office of the American Friends Service Committee coordinated a national boycott of Coca-Cola, under the tagline “Coke Sweetens Apartheid.” Despite the campaign being led by Thandi Gcabashe, the daughter of ANC leader Albert Luthuli, who had worked with Nelson Mandela in the early 1950s, Coca-Cola never fully divested from South Africa.

"Coke Sweetens Apartheid: Coca Cola Out of South Africa" button, circa 1985, created by the American Friends Service Committee for its Coke Boycott Campaign. / THF196995

In 1985, the United States and Great Britain approved economic sanctions against South Africa, but oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell did not fully cooperate. From its home markets in Europe, Shell came to the United States in stages between 1912 and 1929, establishing a large brand identity in America as well as South Africa, where it was heavily relied on because South Africa did not have supplies of oil and gas of its own. From the offices of the United Mine Workers of America in Washington, D.C., the “Boycott Shell” campaign was launched in 1986 with the support of over 40 unions as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and many other national organizations.

"Stop Apartheid Boycott Shell" Button, circa 1986-1987, distributed by the National Labor Boycott Shell Committee via the offices of the United Mine Workers of America. / THF196996

The adoption of economic sanctions by the United States and transnational solidarity culminated in 1990 when Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years of imprisonment. The apartheid regime of South Africa relinquished power and allowed for democratic elections that brought Mandela and the ANC to power in 1994.

Ryan Jelso is associate curator at The Henry Ford.