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 protested almost weekly at the South African consulate - the Madison Park home of the country’s honorary consul, James Swing. Here, three teenaged demonstrators are escorted from the steps of the house by police officers. The demonstration of about 150 protesters marked the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Soweto riots in South Africa, in which hundreds of Black South African schoolchildren were killed by police during a peaceful protest. The protesters, from bottom, are Marianna Johnson, 19-year old UW student; Zena Eltayeb, 18, Garfield High School student and co-chairperson with Johnson of Teenagers Against Apartheid; and Miguel Maestas, 19.

Caption information source: "Three arrested in Seattle protest" by Gil Bailey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 16, 1986, p. A3