Disinvestment from South Africa

The campaign to divest from South Africa gained prominence on university campuses in the United States in the mid-1980s; the debate headlined the October 1985 issue of Vassar College's student newspaper. The man pictured with his index finger raised is then-South African president P.W. Botha._^[1]

Disinvestment (or divestment) from South Africa was first advocated in the 1960s in protest against South Africa's system of apartheid, but was not implemented on a significant scale until the mid-1980s. A disinvestment policy the U.S. adopted in 1986 in response to the disinvestment campaign is credited with playing a role in pressuring the South African government to embark on negotiations that ultimately led to the dismantling of the apartheid system.^[2]

^ "The Fergusson Years: Vassar, 1986–2006" Archived 28 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Vassar College Libraries Archives & Special Collections. Poughkeepsie, NY. 2006.
^ See the debate in Nature: "Boycott of Israel? It worked for South Africa", Steven Rose and Hilary Rose, Nature, volume 417, p. 221 (2002) and the response "Did an academic boycott help to end apartheid?", George Fink, Nature, Volume 417, Issue 6890, p. 690 (2002).

[Vassar-1] "The Fergusson Years: Vassar, 1986–2006" Archived 28 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Vassar College Libraries Archives & Special Collections. Poughkeepsie, NY. 2006.

[2] See the debate in Nature: "Boycott of Israel? It worked for South Africa", Steven Rose and Hilary Rose, Nature, volume 417, p. 221 (2002) and the response "Did an academic boycott help to end apartheid?", George Fink, Nature, Volume 417, Issue 6890, p. 690 (2002).

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