Just a few weeks ago, author and environmental activist Bill McKibben spoke on Democracy Now! and recounted an interesting anecdote to host Amy Goodman. McKibben noted that Nelson Mandela, in his first visit to the U.S. after his release from a 27-year prison sentence in South Africa, made sure to stop at the Berkeley campus at the University of California.
Berkeley was “the cradle of the divestiture movement” of the mid 1980’s, according to the Los Angeles Times. The movement prompted colleges and universities throughout the U.S. (as well as pension and municipal funds)to abandon any investments in companies that operated in South Africa, then under apartheid. Berkeley students “boycotted classes, occupied the offices of top administrators, and were arrested in numbers reminiscent of the 1960s.” They even built shantytowns on campus to force a response from administration. The hard, gritty work eventually paid off and the University of California divested their $3 billion worth of investments in South Africa. Dozens of colleges and universities across the country followed suite.
