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Up from Slavery and Down with Apartheid! African Americans and Black South Africans against the Global Color Line

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2018

ROBERT TRENT VINSON
ROBERT TRENT VINSON*
Affiliation:
Department of History and the Program of Africana Studies, College of William and Mary. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Across the twentieth century, black South Africans often drew inspiration from African American progress. This transatlantic history informed the global antiapartheid struggle, animated by international human rights norms, of Martin Luther King Jr., his fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner the South African leader Albert Luthuli, and the African American tennis star Arthur Ashe. While tracing the travels of African Americans and Africans “going South,” this article centers Africa and Africans, thereby redressing gaps in black Atlantic and African diaspora scholarship.

Type
Forum: The US South and the Black Atlantic
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , May 2018 , pp. 297 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2018 

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References

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6 Leselinyana, 1 Oct. 1890. Quoted in Erlmann, Veit, “‘A Feeling of Prejudice’: Orpheus M. McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers in South Africa 1890–1898,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 14, 3 (April 1988), 331–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 344. The McAdoo troupe inspired Semouse to join the African choir that toured in England. See Erlmann, Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination, esp. 59–85.

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9 American citizenship had conferred a similar status on blacks years before, since at least 1854 when the Transvaal issued an exemption pass to an American Negro. In 1875 in Natal, “E. Page, a person of color,” who had been arrested for violating a night curfew, argued that his American citizenship exempted him from discriminatory laws that applied to Africans. Although the local magistrate insisted the law applied to all black persons, he did not “press the charge.” In 1893, a white Transvaal policeman mistook a black American engineer, John Ross, for an African and whipped him for “impudence.” With Ross demanding redress, the US Department of State brought a claim against the Transvaal government for $10,000 in damages. Ross felt his education, skills, and citizenship exempted him from this cruel treatment, and he fumed that submission to segregationist laws would place African Americans on the level of the “raw, savage, totally uneducated aborigine.” William Van Ness, the American consul at Johannesburg, demanded that the Transvaal government give the matter “immediate attention,” since “the laws of the United States make no distinction in citizenship between white and colored.” Several years later, Van Ness himself would protest incidents against African Americans whom white South Africans mistook for “natives.” In a visit to South Africa five years later, Henry McNeal Turner, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, wrote to the AME journal, Voice of Missions, that “President Cleveland forced the Boers to pay twenty-five thousand dollars because they beat some black American.” Presumably he was referring to John Ross.

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11 Booker T. Washington, proclaiming the fight against Jeffries to be the most significant event for the race since emancipation, installed a news ticker at Tuskegee so its black students could have running updates.

12 “‘Black Coolie’ to Editor,” Times of Natal, 8 July 1910.

13 Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League (UNIA), the largest black-led movement in world history, had most of its American branches in the US South, and South Africa featured more UNIA chapters than anywhere else in Africa. For Garveyism in southern Africa see Edgar, Robert R., “Garveyism in Africa: Dr. Wellington and the American Movement in the Transkei,” Ufahamu, 6, 1 (1976), 31–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hill, Robert A. and Pirio, Gregory A., “Africa for the Africans: The Garvey Movement in South Africa, 1920–1940,” in Marks, Shula and Trapido, Stanley, eds. The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (New York: Routledge, 1987), 209–53Google Scholar; Vinson, The Americans Are Coming!; and Ewing, Adam, The Age of Garvey: How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

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15 Dr. James Moroka was the immediate successor to Xuma as ANC president, serving from 1949 to 1952, until ANC delegates elected Luthuli to the presidency.

16 Wilson Minton to Albert Luthuli, 27 Oct. 1960, in the Albert Luthuli Papers, Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture, New York Public Library (NYPL), Box 4, Folder 73 (hereafter LPSC).

17 “Zulu Chief Is Charmed by US,” Philadelphia Tribune, 18 Jan. 1949; “African Urges Fight against Paganism,” New Journal and Guide, 22 Jan. 1949. Luthuli thanked Frederick Rowe for organizing his southern tour, which “contributed to my store of rich experiences in America.” Luthuli to Rowe, 20 Feb. 1949, Phelps-Stokes Papers, Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture, NYPL (hereafter PSSC), Box 48, File 15; “Zulu Chief Asks for Missionaries,” Cleveland Call and Post, 25 Sept. 1948.

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20 Gandy to President Dr. L. H. Foster, 14 Jan. 1949, PSSC, Box 48, File 15; “Tribute to Luthuli,” New Journal and Guide, 5 Aug. 1967. While in Petersburg, Luthuli said that the US was a beautiful country with friendly people, “a great country, nurtured on the idea of liberty for all.” He also urged that Christians of all colors to participate in ending paganism and spreading progress throughout the world. “Zulu Chief Is Charmed by US”; “African Urges Fight against Paganism.”

21 Letter, Luthuli to Matthews, 15 June 1953, Folder A1, Albert Luthuli File, Historical Papers Research Archive, Cullen Library Collection, University of the Witwatersrand (hereafter LP, WITS); John Brown, his “mouldering body,” and Old Testament symbolisms: Nudelman, Fran, John Brown's Body, Slavery, Violence, & the Culture of War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Reynolds, David S., John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (New York: Knopf Books, 2006)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Benedict Carton for this reference.

22 Gandy to President Dr. L. H. Foster, 14 Jan. 1949; Albert Luthuli to Frederick Rowe, 24 Aug. 1948; and Rowe to Reuling, 17 Aug. 1948; Schedule for Visit of Chief Albert J. Luthuli, 18–22 Jan 1949; PSSC, Box 48, File 15; Los Angeles Sentinel, 10 March 1949.

23 Luthuli, Albert, Let My People Go (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 82–84Google Scholar.

24 Samuel Gandy, “Tribute to Luthuli,” Norfolk New Journal and Guide, 5 Aug. 1967.

25 Ibid.; Vinson, Robert Trent, Albert Luthuli: Mandela before Mandela (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Gordimer, Nadine, Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954–2008 (New York: Norton and Company, 2010), 55Google Scholar.

27 Luthuli, Let My People Go, 46–47. Some examples of this expanding historiography include Meriwether, James, Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935–1961 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gaines, Kevin, African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Plummer, Brenda Gayle, In Search of Power: African Americans in the Era of Decolonization, 1956–1974 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Anderson, Carol, Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Luthuli to Frederick Rowe, 20 Feb. 1949, PSSC; Luthuli, Let My People Go, 86–90.

29 Welsh, David, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 110–12Google Scholar; “Minutes of the Meetings of the Working Committee of the African National Congress (Natal) Held on Saturday, 10 Sept. 1952, at Lakhani Chambers, Saville Street, Durban,” Albert Luthuli Papers, Cooperative Africana Microfilm Project (hereafter LPCAMP); Albert Luthuli, “We Go to Action,” 30 Aug. 1952 (LPCAMP).

30 Luthuli mentioned several times that Gandhi and his satyagraha campaigns against Britain had “inspired the ANC's struggle against apartheid.” Pillay, Gerald, Voices of Liberation: Albert Luthuli (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2012), 31Google Scholar.

31 Luthuli, Let My People Go, 147–148.

32 Two examples are Moyn, Samuel, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; and Bradley, Mark Philip, The World Reimagined: Americans and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Saul Dubow notes that some factions of the ANC did not consistently engage in human rights discourse but does not fully explore the human rights language of the Luthuli wing of the ANC. Dubow, Saul, South Africa's Struggle for Human Rights (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012)Google Scholar. For African American history, Carol Anderson is one notable exception, centering African American human rights discourse and action between 1940 and 1960. See Anderson, Carol, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; and Anderson, Bourgeois Radicals.

33 Dubow, 58–60.

34 The text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be accessed on the United Nations website at www.un.org.

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38 Albert Luthuli and M. B. Yengwa, “Joint Message to the Congress of the People of South Africa: Meeting in Kliptown, Johannesburg, on 25–26 June 1955,” in Box 3 Folder 54, LPSC.

39 Luthuli Presidential Address to Provincial Natal ANC annual meeting, 26 July 1956, Box 4, Folder 19, LPSC; Luthuli to Hooper, 8 June 1956, Box 4, Folder 1, LPSC; Luthuli Presidential Address, 26 July 1956, Box 3, Folder 87, LPSC; Suttner, Raymond and Cronin, Jeremy, 50 Years of the Freedom Charter (London: Zed Books, 2007), 115Google Scholar. “Freedom Struggle Must Go On,” New Age, 2 Aug. 1956.

40 Luthuli, Let My People Go, 219; Pillay, Voices of Liberation, 23. The ANC called for an international boycott against apartheid South Africa in December 1958 at the All-African Peoples’ Conference in Accra, Ghana. Luthuli renewed his call for sanctions at the 1959 ANC conference. Walter Sisulu wrote an important exposition on the utility of the boycott for the South African situation, noting its various historical uses in Ireland, Russia, and India, as well as in South Africa. Walter Sisulu, “Boycott as a Political Weapon,” Liberation, 23 Feb. 1957.

41 Ndlovu, Sifiso, “The ANC and the World,” in South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy, Volume I (1960–70) (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010), 549–50Google Scholar.

42 Quoted in Pillay, 24.

43 Dubow, South Africa's Struggle for Human Rights, 13–14; “Top U.S. Diplomat in South Africa sees Luthuli,” Sunday Times, 20 Sept. 1959, Box 6, Folder 115, LPSC; “Make December 10 a Worthy Anniversary,” New Age, 3 Dec. 1959.

44 Asmal, Kader, Chidester, David, and James, Wilmot (eds.), South Africa's Nobel Laureates: Peace, Literature, and Science (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004), 63Google Scholar.

45 Gunnar Jahn, “Nobel Presentation Speech for Albert Luthuli, 10 December, 1961,” at Nobel.org, accessed 25 April 2017.

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47 Nobel Lecture delivered by Chief Albert Luthuli.

48 There is considerable historiographical debate about the ANC's response to apartheid violence, particularly its adoption of counterviolence with the formation of MK in 1961 and the respective roles of Mandela, Luthuli, and the South African Communist Party. Space considerations in this essay do not allow for a full explication of this extensive and complex South African-centered debate. For pathbreaking discussions on popular conceptions of Luthuli's relation to MK see Sithole, Jabulani and Mkhize, Sibosigeni, “Truth or Lies? Selective Memories, Imagings and Representations of Chief Albert Luthuli in recent political discourses,” History and Theory, 39 (2000), 69–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ray Suttner contended that Luthuli supported the formation of MK as “just means” against a violent apartheid state that had closed off long-standing nonviolent options. Scott Couper countered that Luthuli was opposed to the formation of MK, while Stephen Ellis argued that the South African Communist Party, with the support of the Soviet Union, was the driving force in the inauguration of the armed struggle, including the formation of MK. See Suttner, Ray, “The Road to Freedom Is Via the Cross: ‘Just Means’ in Chief Albert Luthuli's Life,” South African Historical Journal, 62, 4 (2010), 693–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 699–700; Couper, Scott, “Emasculating Agency: An Unambiguous Assessment of Albert Luthuli's Stance on Violence,” South African Historical Journal, 64, 3 (2012), 564–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 567, 569; Couper, , Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith (Scottsville: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, 2010), 111–84Google Scholar; Couper, , “An Embarrassment to the Congresses? The Silencing of Chief Albert Luthuli and the Production of ANC History,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 2 (2009), 331–48Google Scholar; and Ellis, Stephen, External Mission: The ANC in Exile 1960–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 12, 25–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other important contributions on South Africa's “turn to armed struggle” include Simpson, Thula, Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC's Armed Struggle (Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa, 2016)Google Scholar, Simpson, , The ANC and the Liberation Struggle in South Africa: Essential Writings (New York: Routledge, 2017)Google Scholar; Landau, Paul, “The ANC, MK, and ‘The Turn to Violence’ (1960–62),” South African Historical Journal, 64, 3 (2012), 538–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Landau, , “Controlled by Communists? (Re)assessing the ANC in its Exilic Decades,” South African Historical Journal, 67, 2, (2015), 223–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Utilizing the newly available Luthuli papers housed at the Arturo Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, as well as a number of other newly available archival sources, I address this debate in considerable detail in my forthcoming biography of Luthuli. See Vinson, Robert Trent, Albert Luthuli: Mandela before Mandela (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Broun, Kenneth, Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa (New York, Oxford University, 2012), 102–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 The UN Special Committee on Apartheid led by Enuga S. Reddy provided data and testimony to the General Assembly and Security Council, with the aim of fostering boycotts, arms embargoes, and wide condemnation of South Africa. For ACOA antiapartheid and civil rights activity during the Cold War see Phyllis Martin, “A Moral Imperative: The Role of American Black Churches in International Anti-Apartheid Activism,” PhD thesis, George Mason University, 2015, 104–93; Irwin, Ryan, Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 78–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nesbitt, Francis Njubi, Race for Sanctions: African Americans against Apartheid, 1946–1994 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Borstelmann, Thomas, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Plummer, Brenda, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 M. King Jr., “Address on South African Independence,” 7 Dec. 1964, London, quoted by Baldwin, Lewis, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Coalition of Conscience,” in Smith, R. Drew, ed., Freedom's Distant Shores: American Protestants and Post-colonial Alliances (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 53–82Google Scholar, 65.

52 King's speech linked the “struggle for freedom in the United States … [to what was] going on in South Africa”: M. King Jr., “Apartheid in South Africa,” 12 July 1963, 1–3, Archives of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia.

53 See www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance_en.html. Citing Gandhi, King had spoken of deterring racist oppressors in a debate with Robert Williams, whose self-defense activism in North Carolina upset the NAACP, to which he was formerly affiliated. King, “The Great Debate: Is Violence Necessary to Combat Injustice?”, Jan. 1960, Southern Patriot, 3, reprinted in Williams, Robert, Negroes with Guns (New York: Martino Fine Books, 1962), 11–15Google Scholar.

54 King stopped short of the MK solution, urging instead a boycott of all things apartheid South Africa, “which would involve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and Japan.” King, Martin Luther Jr., “Chaos or Community: Where Do We Go from Here?”, in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Washington, James (New York: Harper One, 2003), 621Google Scholar. See also King, “The Great Debate.” For King and South Africa see Robert Cook, “Awake, the Beloved Country: A Comparative Perspective on the Visionary Leadership of Martin Luther King and Albert Lutuli,” South African Historical Journal, 36, 1 (1997), 113–35Google Scholar; Baldwin, Toward the Beloved Community.

55 Moyn, The Last Utopia, 105.

56 King, whose internationalism included trips to Ghana and Nigeria for their independence ceremonies, and to India, and engagement with a wide variety of African and Asian leaders, was an heir to the World War II-era human rights campaigns of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), inspired by Max Yergan, who had lived in South Africa from 1921 to 1936 and thought the 1946 UN resolution condemning South Africa's discrimination against Indians in that country could be applied to African Americans within the US. Yergan's idea came to fruition with W. E. B. Du Bois's 1947 petition “An Appeal to the World,” condemning African American subordination in the United States. But as the Cold War accelerated, white supremacists successfully smeared the linked demands for the end of colonialism and American Jim Crow as communist-inspired threats to America and the NAACP dropped demands for socioeconomic justice and focussed more narrowly on a domestic civil rights program of legal equality. See Anderson, Eyes off the Prize; Anderson, Bourgeois Radicals.

57 Baldwin, Lewis, ed., In a Single Garment of Destiny: A Global Vision of Justice (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 31Google Scholar.

58 Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Luthuli Joint Statement against Apartheid, July 1962, reprinted in Baldwin, In a Single Garment of Destiny, 33–35.

59 Martin Luther King Jr., “Let My People Go,” 10 Dec. 1965, London, England, reprinted in Baldwin, In a Single Garment of Destiny, 39–40. As part of this growing emphasis on internationalist human rights, in 1967 the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) expanded its domestic civil rights framework to declare itself a human rights organization also engaged in global issues. See Plummer, In Search of Power, 181.

60 King, Martin Luther Jr., Appeal for an International Boycott against South Africa (New York: United Nations Centre Against Apartheid, 1982)Google Scholar. In 1968 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution of support for the cultural boycott. See UN General Assembly, 23rd session, 1731st Plenary Meeting, “Resolution 2396: The Policies of Apartheid of the Government of South Africa” (A.7348), 2 Dec. 1968, Official Records of the UN, 1968.

61 King, “Let My People Go,” 42.

62 Transcript of “Malcolm X Speaks for the Prospects for Freedom,” 7 Jan. 1965, Militant Labor Forum, New York, Pacifica Radio Archive, North Hollywood, California; West, Cornel, ed. The Radical King (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015)Google Scholar, ix. Malcolm's assassination in February 1965 aborted this effort. For King's desire to visit South Africa see “King to the South African Embassy, 9 Feb. 1966,” in Baldwin, In a Single Garment of Destiny, 45. For the long-standing relationship between King and South Africa see Baldwin, Toward the Beloved Community.

63 Martin Luther King Jr., excerpt from “Chaos or Community,” reprinted in A Testament of Hope, 621.

64 Wexler, S. and Hancock, L., The Awful Disgrace of God: Religious Terrorism, White Supremacy, and the Unsolved Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 199–200Google Scholar.

65 See Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line; Irwin, Gordian Knot.

66 Noer, Thomas, Cold War and Black Liberation: The United States and White Rule in Africa, 1948–1968 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985)Google Scholar; El-Khawas, Mohamed and Cohen, Barry, eds., The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa: National Security Study Memorandum 39 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 105Google Scholar; Houser, George, United States Policy and Southern Africa (New York: The Africa Fund, 1974), 30Google Scholar.

67 Leading works on the US antiapartheid movement include Massie, Robert Kinloch, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years, New York: Doubleday, 1997)Google Scholar; Culverson, Donald, Contesting Apartheid: US Activism, 1960–1987 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Hostetter, David, Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the rise of Multicultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Nesbitt, Race for Sanctions; and Minter, William, Hovey, Gail, and Cobb, Charlie Jr., No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half-Century, 1950–2000 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2008)Google Scholar. Activist memoirs include Robinson, Randall, Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America (New York: Plume Press, 1998)Google Scholar; and Dellums, Ronald, Lying Down with the Lions: A Public Life from the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

68 Lapchick, Richard E., “South Africa: Sport and Apartheid Politics,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 445 (Sept. 1979), 155–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Since 1946, South Africa had enacted color bans in the constitutions of sporting bodies; banned competition between white and “nonwhite” athletes, coaches, and administrators; barred black players from representing South Africa in international competitions; disallowed foreign black players competing in South Africa; and banned “nonwhite” spectators at whites-only sporting events.

69 Bass, Amy, Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Booth, Douglas, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa, (London: Psychology Press, 1988), 88Google Scholar.

70 South Africa had been banned from the 1964 Olympics in 1964 and in 1968 were applying for reinstatement. “Americans Call for Continued Suspension of South Africa from Olympic Games,” American Committee on Africa Statement, 8 May 1966. Ashe was one of 30 prominent Americans, including sportsmen, theologians, politicians, and civil rights leaders, to sign this document. See also “Statement by Jackie Robinson and K. C. Jones on Behalf of American Athletes Protesting South Africa Readmission to the 1968 Olympic Games,” 8 Feb. 1968. Ashe was one of 23 athletes who were initial signatories to this document. Both documents are in George M. Houser (Africa Collection), African Activist Archive, Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections (hereafter MSU).

71 Hall, Eric Allen, Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Morgan, Eric, “Black and White at Center Court: Arthur Ashe and the Confrontation of Apartheid in South Africa,” Diplomatic History, 36, 5 (Nov. 2012), 815–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arthur Ashe with Rampersad, Arnold, Days of Grace (New York: Ballentine Books, 1994), 113Google Scholar.

72 Hall, Eric Allen, “I Guess I'm Becoming More and More Militant: Arthur Ashe and the Black Freedom Movement,” Journal of African American History, 96, 4 (Fall 2011), 474–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 488, 495.

73 Hall, Arthur Ashe, 148.

74 “Ashe Deserves a Doff of the Hat,” Baltimore Afro-American, 12 July 1969; “Arthur Ashe Will Test South African Apartheid,” Baltimore Afro-American, 9 Aug. 1969.

75 “Ashe Visa Denial Reaffirmation of South African Racism: American Committee on Africa Calls for End to All US–SA Sports Ties,” 28 Jan. 1970, African Activist Archive, MSU.

76 Morgan, 822–24.

77 New York Times, 16 May 1970; ACOA Annual Report, Jan. 1972, from private collection of David Wiley and Christine Root, in African Activist Archive, MSU. “Chronological Review of Developments Concerning Sports and Apartheid,” Group 1499, Box 1, Folder 1 (ESRPY); “Ashe Visa Denial Reaffirmation of South African Racism”; “Statement of the American Committee on Africa,” 28 Jan. 1970, MSS 294, Houser Papers, “South Africa–Sports Boycott,” Box 1, Folder 42; Booth, 99; Morgan, 832. The Soviet Union had first raised the question of banning South Africa from the Olympics and other international competitions in 1958 and it, along with several African, Soviet bloc, and Scandinavian countries had put forth similar resolutions in the years afterwards. As on the UN Security Council, the US, the UK, and France had weighted votes on the ILTF, which required a 4:5 majority for expulsion. Houser expressed great concern that a potential Ashe visit to South Africa would be manipulated by the apartheid regime to project a benign face for apartheid. See Ashe to Houser, 21 Dec. 1969, and Houser to Ashe, 30 Dec.1969, MSS 294 Houser Papers, “South Africa–Sports Boycott,” Box 1, Folder 42.

78 Nesbitt, Race for Sanctions, 84–85. Diggs had gone to South Africa in 1969 on a visa that did not allow him freedom of movement, and had been denied a visa several other times.

79 “Jackie Robinson Chats on Rights and Sports,” Soul City Times (Milwaukee), 19 March 1970. The United Negro College Fund also protested South Africa's apartheid policies.

80 Arthur Ashe testimony to the UN Special Committee on Apartheid, April 1970, United Nations Centre against Apartheid, Herskovits Library, Northwestern University; Nesbitt, 86. While he agreed with Diggs and the ACOA, the preeminent American group against southern African colonialism and apartheid, that the South African government should be punished with diplomatic and economic sanctions, he did not agree that individual South African athletes, including antiapartheid proponents like his friend Drysdale, should be denied entry visas to the United States.

81 De Roche, Andy, “KK, the Godfather and the Duke: Maintaining Positive Relations between Zambia and the USA in Spite of Nixon's Other Priorities,” Safundi, 12, 1 (Jan. 2011), 104–5Google Scholar.

82 Arthur Ashe with Deford, Frank, Portrait in Motion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), 108Google Scholar; Houser, George, No One Can Stop the Rain (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989), 275–76Google Scholar. In 1971 the South African government issued a visa to Australian aborigine tennis star Evonne Goolagong to compete in the South Africa Open. “Chronological Review of Developments Concerning Sports and Apartheid,” Group 1499 Box 1, Folder 1 (ESRPY).

83 Ashe, Portrait in Motion, 107.

84 Minter, Hovey, and Cobb, No Easy Victories, 26.

85 Booth, William Jr., “The ACOA Mid-year Report,” July 1973; “We Say No to Apartheid,” Wichita Times, 3 Jan. 1974Google Scholar; “We Say No to Apartheid: A Declaration of American Artists,” George Houser Papers, Michigan State University Special Collections (hereafter GHPMSU), MSS 294, Box 1, Folder 23, “Boycott-Entertainers South Africa”; John Henrik Clarke and Louise Meriwether, “Should Afro-Americans Tour South Africa?”; “Should American Blacks Tour South Africa to Entertain Africans?” GHPMSU, MSS 294, Box 1, Folder 23, “Boycott-Entertainers South Africa.”

86 Nesbitt, 88–89.

87 Andrew Young to Arthur Ashe, 16 July 1973; Barbara Jordan to Arthur Ashe, 23 July 1973; Ronald Dellums to Arthur Ashe, 19 July 1973; Julian Bond to Arthur Ashe, 18 July 1973; and Nikki Giovanni to Arthur Ashe, 25 July 1973, all in Folder 6, Correspondence and Program, Box 1, Arthur Ashe Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (hereafter AASC).

88 Dennis Brutus to Arthur Ashe, 12 July 1973, AASC, Ashe Papers, Folder 6, Box 1; “Black Poet Dennis Brutus, Exiled from His Native South Africa after Being in Prison 18 Months for His Opposition to Apartheid,” Chicago Metro News, 20 April 1974.

89 For the 1973 strikes see MacShane, Denis, Plaut, Martin, and Ward, David, Power! Black Workers, Their Unions and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (Nottingham: Spokesman Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Friedman, Steven, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970–1984 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), 37–38Google Scholar. For the Black Consciousness Movement see Magaziner, Daniel R., The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968–1977 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Mangcu, Xolela, Biko: A Life (Cape Town: I. B. Taurus, 2013)Google Scholar; Hadfield, Leslie Anne, Liberation and Development: Black Consciousness Community Programs in South Africa (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

90 As noted earlier, some African Americans in South Africa had been classified as “honorary whites” since the late nineteenth century. See Vinson, The Americans Are Coming!, chapter 1; Curry, “Considered Coloured or Honorary White.” Examples from the 1970s include African American entertainers like the soul singer Percy Sledge, enormously popular in South Africa, who broke a cultural boycott by entertaining segregated black and white audiences in South Africa in May 1970; Eartha Kitt, who entertained white South Africans in Swaziland in October 1971; and the light heavyweight champion boxer Bob Foster. Planned tours by Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, and Muhammad Ali were canceled after considerable outcry. “Should American Blacks Tour South Africa?”. Sledge was originally scheduled to perform to black South Africans only but after a tremendous outcry from excluded whites experiencing a rare instance of being negatively impacted by apartheid, Sledge also performed for exclusively white audiences. “Apartheid in Reverse,” Guardian Weekly, 6 June 1970; “Sledge Will ‘Soul’ to Whites,” Cape Times, 11 June 1970. Other foreigners like the Japanese or the Iranian Davis Cup tennis team in 1969 had also been classified as “honorary whites,” exempt from apartheid laws that restricted South African blacks. Johannesburg Post, 20 April 1969.

91 “The Controversial Ashe,” Die Burger, 1 Dec. 1973.

92 “Somebody Listen before It's Too Late,” Sunday Times, 2 Dec. 1973.

93 Ashe, Days of Grace, 104, 106. His planned meeting with the controversial Bantustan leader Gatsha Buthelezi was canceled because of bad weather but the two men resolved to meet when Buthelezi visited the US. “Weather Upsets Ashe's Schedule,” Cape Argus, 28 Nov. 1973.

94 “Ashe Sees ‘Breezes of Change’ in S Africa,” Cape Argus, 29 Nov. 1973; “All-Race Tennis Hailed as Major Breakthrough,” Cape Argus, 8 Dec. 1973.

95 Arthur Ashe, Days of Grace, 106–7.

96 Edwin Ogbu, chairman of Special Committee on Apartheid, “Text of Statement by Chairman of Apartheid Committee Issued Today,” 7 Oct. 1974, Box 1499, Folder 7 (ESRPY). The South Africans had also played Chile in Bogota, Columbia. “Chronological Review of Developments Concerning Sports and Apartheid,” Group 1499 Box 1, Folder 1 (ESRPY).

97 “Ashe Defends South Africa,” Milwaukee Star Times, 2 Jan. 1975.

98 “Change: A Dream of Hope,” Rand Daily Mail, 30 Nov. 1974; “Why Ashe Came to South Africa,” Johannesburg Post, 1 Dec. 1974.

99 “Night Scene,” Milwaukee Star Times, 11 Dec. 1975.

100 Joseph Jordan, “The 1970s: Expanding Networks” in Minter, Hovey, and Cobb, No Easy Victories, 113–50, 121; Ndlovu, Sifiso, Nieftagodien, Noor, and Moloi, Tshepo, “The Soweto Uprising,” South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume II (1970–1980) (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2006), 317–70Google Scholar.

101 Neil Amdur, “Anti-apartheid Protests Likely for Wimbledon,” New York Times, 26 May 1977, also cited in Morgan, “Black and White,” 838.

102 For an autobiographical account of Robinson's central role in US antiapartheid activism see Robinson, Defending the Spirit.

103 Minter, Hovey, and Cobb, 45; Richard Lapchick to W. E. Hester, 15 June 1977, and American Coordinating Committee for Equality in Sport and Society, “End All Sports Ties with South Africa,” African Activist Archive, Aug. 1977, MSU.

104 For an overview of the challenges for American academics seeking to engage in antiapartheid activism see Thompson, Leonard, “The Study of South African History in the United States,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 25, 1 (1992), 25–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 Ashe, Days of Grace, 110; “I.D.A.F. News Notes” (Cambridge, MA, Oct. 1983), International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, United States Committee (Geoff Wisner collection), Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections. Luthuli's daughter Thandi Gcabashe also was a leader in the cultural boycott, including as director of the Southern Peace Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee from 1981 to 1996. Ashe also participated in a month-long commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre and taped radio announcements against apartheid. “I.D.A.F. News Notes,” April 1984.

106 “Sports – Apartheid Moves Build,” New York Times, 26 April 1981; Ashe, Days of Grace, 107–8; “Sun City's Tennis Spectacular Is Off,” Rand Daily Mail, 18 Oct. 1980; “Supertennis Scrapped,” Natal Mercury, 18 Oct. 1980, in Richard Lapchick, end-of-year ACCESS report, from private collection of David Wiley and Christine Root in African Activist Archive, MSU. Ashe convened a meeting between John McEnroe Sr., former American ambassador Franklin Williams, and ACCESS head Richard Lapchick.

107 Ashe, Days of Grace; “American Blacks Back Mandela on Sanctions,” New York Times, 3 Nov. 1991.

108 Mathabane, Mark, Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa (New York: Free Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Ashe, Days of Grace, 105.

109 Williams, Michael Paul, “Arthur Ashe: A Virginia Hero for the World,” Richmond Times Dispatch, 8 Feb. 1993Google Scholar.

110 Ashe, Days of Grace, 105–10.