A Spring of Protest

Yesterday's Lowell House blockade was but the latest anti-apartheid protest in one of the busiest seasons of pro divestment activity since 1972, when students first protested against South African apartheid. The events leading up to yesterday's events are as follows:

December 3, 1984: Nobel Peace Prize winner pop Desmond M. Tutu, in a visit to Boston and Harvard, charges that the University's investments directly support apartheid.

January 9, 1985: The student-run Harvard Law Review decides to divest of its $113,000 worth of stock in south Africa related companies. Dean of the Law School James Vorenberg '49, reversing a decision made the year before, decides not to oppose the move.

January 15: The Rev. Jesse I. Jackson tells 900 at Memorial Church that Harvard's relationship with South Africa is a "marriage born in hell."

February 10: The Association of Black and Administrators calls for divestment from South Africa. The same week, Bok meets with members of the group to discuss the Corporation's sale of Baker International stock.

February 14: Harvard sells $1 million worth of stock in Baker International, because of that company's failure to provide sufficient information about its South African operations. The move marks the first time Harvard has divested of a company's failure to meet its ethical guidelines for treatment of South African Blacks and coloreds.

April 1: Nearly 30 Law School demonstrators kick off a pro-divestment week by marching on Massachusetts Hall and calling on the University to divest of its $580 million worthy of stock in companies doing business in South Africa.

April 4: The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson charges Harvard with supporting a government he likens to Nazi Germany at a two-hour rally in Tercentenary Theatre that draws 5,000. The rally is the largest single protest event at Harvard in nearly two decades.

Afterwards a group of 75 camp overnight in front of Massachusetts Hall, which they rename in honor of South African anti-apartheid leader Steven Biko.

At Columbia University, students chain shut and blockade a key administration building on the New York campus, while others start a hunger strike. The move leads to a protracted legal struggle and nationwide interest in the blockade.

April 5: Harvard police escort Mass Hall administrators and other workers through the group of 50 encamped protesters, who decided the night before not to disrupt Mass Hall business. President Bok stays away from his office for the second day in a row.

April 11: Nearly 100 protesters confront President Bok on University South Africa investment polices in front of the Graduate School of Education During the 20 minute dialogue. Bok defends Harvard's policy of intensive dialogue with corporations doing business in South African as a way of improving the lives of South African Blacks.

April 22: At 8:45 a.m. 50 divestment demonstrators surround 17 Quincy St., where the seven-man governing Corporations later holds one of its bi-weekly meetings.

April 24: At 9.00 a.m. 45 students begin a day-long sit-in at the 17 Quincy St. headquarters of Harvard's Governing Boards. The sit-in, which comes on a day of nationwide student protest against apartheid, is the first building occupation in two years and the first per divestment sit-in since 1972. After camping out on the second floor of the building for eight hours, the students as promised save the building at 5 p.m.

Students stage similar protests at more than 80 campuses nationwide including Tufts, where students began a three-day occupation of the Medford school's main administrative building.