The Power of Solidarity: Anti-Apartheid Activism on US Campuses and at UNC-Chapel Hill

This article explores solidarity as an important political praxis with diverse ways of participation through a case study of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student anti-apartheid movement. Research heavily draws upon primary resources from the Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson Library. Secondary resources are utilized to contextualize the history of apartheid, internal resistance, and anti-apartheid solidarity within the global community. The focus is placed primarily on the Anti-Apartheid Support Group (AASG) due to limited archival materials. This article explores the AASG’s organizational structure, influences, collaborating organizations, strategies and tactics employed, challenges, and gains to argue that student solidarity efforts made an impact on the national anti-apartheid movement by influencing public awareness and policies that eventually aided the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa. While the AASG was a prominent student organization, it does not represent the entire UNC Chapel Hill student movement nor paint a picture of the exact way the movement occurred, as there were various students who participated outside of university-recognized organizational bodies. Additionally, there were other student organizations such as the Black Student Movement and Action Against Apartheid, the participation of which is not fully accounted for due to the lack of an archival collection