Anti-Apartheid Solidarity Textile

ca. 1980s

Nonviolent protests and global boycotts helped end South African apartheid.

The South African apartheid system (1948–1994) made racial segregation the law of the land. Apartheid guaranteed white rule, separated the country’s Black, “Coloured,” and Indian populations, and reduced non-whites to second-class citizenship. Black South Africans led protests against apartheid from its very beginning, and over time, these nonviolent “defiance campaigns” spread across the nation.

Many throughout the world supported the South African demonstrators. Global protests against apartheid included sanctions, trade embargoes, cultural boycotts, and armed resistance. People in Brazzaville, Congo, created this textile in support of the movement.