Pan-Africanism and the Origins of the Anti-Apartheid Boycott

The global movement against the South African apartheid regime, which lasted from 1948 to 1994, was among the longest continuous social movements of the twentieth century. One of the movement’s primary goals was to use international fora to coordinate the total economic, diplomatic, and cultural isolation of Pretoria. This international pressure was undertaken primarily through global United Nations (UN) mandates, communist and non-aligned nations’ foreign policy, and local campaigns that organized boycotts, divestments, blockades, and sanctions from the 1950s through the 1990s. This paper investigates the relationship between anti-colonial Pan-Africanism and the international boycotts of South Africa during the period of decolonization. Using resolutions, organizational records, and speeches, it locates some of the earliest efforts to isolate Pretoria within Pan-Africanism gatherings such as the 1950s All African Peoples Conferences and the 1960s Organization of African Unity (OAU). The paper probes an array of creative strategies and tactics, some implemented others merely imagined, that Pan-Africanists used to bring an end to apartheid and colonialism in southern Africa. It shows that the history of boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS), when viewed within its Pan-Africanist context, held a blueprint for redressing the world-historical ramifications of colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid.