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.

On August 22, 1986, members of the University of Washington Board of Regents met at the UW Administration Building, Gerberding Hall, to make a final decision on divestment. Here, UW students protest outside the building. The board voted 6-3 to sell UW’s South Africa-related investments by the end of 1987. This amounted to $2.58 million, or 4% of the university’s endowment.

Caption information source: “UW will sell stocks linked to S. Africa”, by Caroline Young, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 23, 1986, pages A1 and A6.