“We Are Worried Mothers:” A Panel of “Ordinary South Africans” on US Capitol Hill

ABSTRACT

In 1986, a “panel of ordinary South Africans” addressed members of the US Congress. Their visit did not command as much attention as would the visit of (future president) Nelson Mandela in 1990 or as did (former prime minister) Jan Smuts in 1930. Yet, for an increasing number of Americans watching closely, it represented a momentous public rebuttal to apartheid. The visit responded to ongoing celebrity protests and built public support for sanctions. While many Americans instigating “designer arrests” believed that they spoke for South Africans, in 1986, physicians, activists, and children who had faced detention spoke for themselves on foreign soil, becoming embroiled in attendant tension and harassment on their way home. An examination of the records of the Southern Africa Project and the US Congress reveals that, while the embassy protests were catalytic, this panel of “ordinary South Africans” on the Hill—and, subsequently, on national and international television—provided public faces for anti-apartheid movements in ways that celebrities certainly could not. As such, it is necessary to examine the factors leading to the panel, its impact on US anti-apartheid politics, and places of connection with youth activism and celebrity protest generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Apartheid
• US Congress
• South Africa
• protest
• celebrity
• media
• social change
• civil rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Like many Americans interested in South Africa, Wolpe had a personal connection to the country. The Michigan congressman trained as a political scientist, with an interest in Africa's Great Lakes Region. He chaired the House Subcommittee on Africa.

2 In 1961, Robert F. Kennedy famously asked “Where are the lawyers?” as he visited Alabama in the wake of Freedom Rights. He also perhaps lay the groundwork for Ted Kennedy's activism through his own interest in South Africa. Robert Kennedy visited the country for five days in June 1966, as an invited guest of the National Union of South African Students and affiliated Bar groups. There, he met with South Africans of all races, including recent Nobel Peace laureate and ANC president Albert Luthuli. He spoke at university campuses, from Stellenbosch to Durban and, according to his aides, the visit greatly changed his thinking on and sympathy toward South Africa. After the visit, however, Kennedy remained fundamentally opposed to economic sanctions against South Africa, which he believed would most harm impoverished black South Africans.

3 Some documents use the spelling Dlomo.