Divestment for Humanity: The Anti-Apartheid Movement at the University of Michigan

Abstract

In the late 1970s, students and faculty at the University of Michigan began to speak up in protest against the University’s investments in corporations with ties to apartheid South Africa. Divestment for Humanity details the origins of anti-apartheid activism from antiwar and civil rights activist movement legacies, expansion and climax of the movement, and finally the legacies that the anti-apartheid movement has carried at the University of Michigan and in the surrounding Ann Arbor community. The anti-apartheid movement affected many campuses and communities around the country and internationally; that spanned the tenures of multiple university presidents; that brought in the involvement and cooperation of students, faculty, and Ann Arbor residents; that survived legal battles between the university and the state; and that eventually accomplished its stated goals, to force the University to divest from American firms with investments in South Africa, and leave behind powerful legacies.