When South Africa’s National Party came to power in 1948, the white leadership put extreme laws in place forcing the country’s racial groups to live and develop separately. These “apartheid” laws caused much hardship and resentment. The growth of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1950s brought attention to apartheid, and in the 1970s and 80s, students and other groups staged protests and demonstrations demanding that universities, banks, cities, and other entities divest themselves of any financial holdings in firms doing business in South Africa.
Starting in late 1984, anti-apartheid demonstrators from a variety of organizations began protesting almost weekly at the South African consulate - the Madison Park home of the country’s honorary consul, James Swing. This image shows some of the dozen protesters outside the consulate on December 8, 1984.
Caption information source: “Apartheid protesters march at S. African consulate here”, by Jerry E. Carson, The Seattle Times/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 9, 1984, page D5. Caption information source: “Pressure to end apartheid began at grass roots in U.S.”, by Stephen Kauffman, U.S. Missions to International Organizations in Geneva, December 16, 2013. Geneva.usmission.gov. Caption information source: “A History of Apartheid in South Africa,” South Africa History Online, May 4, 2022.
