Bryn Mawr had $8 million invested in South Africa in the fall of 1985. Students did not accept the college’s proposed gradual and strategic partial divestment. South African senior Binafer Nowrojee told The Mainline Times, “The students want completely severed ties with the 21 corporations dealing with the oppressive government in place in South Africa.”¹ A Kenyan first year told The Inquirer “I hope to shake things up on campus… [it] is so complacent, and there is so much ignorance of international issues.”² Students formed the Coalition for Divestment which held a massive day of action Friday, February 28th, 1986. 200 students took over the administrative office hallway on the second floor of Taylor Hall, beginning at 6am. Two administrators, attempting to get into their offices, were turned away.²

The takeover had 3 clear demands:

1. Total and immediate divestment
2. The institution of a diversity requirement
3. The observation of the end of Black History Month

Total divestment went against Bryn Mawr’s entire modus operandi of slow and gradual decisions to protect profit. “Students find corporate reforms absurd,” reads one headline.³ Becky Young wrote how the trustees position that the US government was the best vehicle to achieve change in South Africa was hypocritical. If Bryn Mawr wouldn’t divest how could they call for the US to put sanctions on South Africa? The coalition felt the college’s trust in corporations to reform Apartheid was misguided. Paraphrasing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, they wrote how “we do not wish to make the chains of Apartheid more comfortable; we wish to see them broken.” The coalition argued all money in South Africa bolstered Apartheid, as the state had the ability to appropriate any orporation. South Africa under the NP actually had the most nationalized businesses outside the Communist Bloc, but only whites benefited from this.⁴

The Coalition made a deliberate decision to forward women of color as leaders, as these issues impacted them the most. Linking international solidarity with a system of segregation to racism at Bryn Mawr and in the US was central to the anti-Apartheid struggle on campus. Affinity groups such as Sisterhood, the Asian Students Association, International Students Association, and Color held a poetry reading and had a “speak out” about racism on campus. These organizers noted how they faced pushback from apathetic people telling them to “Fight racism here first” — a suggestion that anti-Apartheid activism was unrelated to the US and insinuation that nothing could be done about it. The women of color organizers saw their expression of solidarity as fighting racism everywhere and creating community across racial boundaries in the process.

Day of action photos and posters in local news and school papers.^1,2,5

The protests were successful, despite the fact that they took place during midterm season. The students received vocal support from professors. Major news outlets covered the events. The college even cut phone service on the second floor of Taylor where protesters were mobilized. Students set up in nearby dorms and classrooms to contact students outside the building. 100 students participated in a vigil at Campus Center at 6pm that evening. The sit-in was slated to end at then, but 30 students decided to spend the night in Taylor until the Board of Trustees met the next day to discuss divestment. The campers made cardboard coffins to hold up during a protest in the morning.

During the trustees meeting, 60 students laid down in the lobby of Wyndham Alumni House to block the trustees from exiting. Student protesters saw this as representing their powerless position. Some trustees crawled out of the window, while the stragglers spoke with students.

Students who blocked the Board meeting forced some trustees out the window.

Here is an angry reaction sent to admin from an anonymous person⁶:

Across the Area

Bryn Mawr is a part of a consortium of Quaker founded institutions in Pennsylvania. Its partner schools also engaged in successful divestment campaigns. Students at Haverford College locked administration out as apart of this coordinated movement in the consortium. Four Black members of the faculty and administration at Haverford wrote that the College must “Live up to its principles and divest”.⁷ The institution’s Quaker values had informed its investments for over 100 years, the college did not invest in tobacco or military holdings. Haverford also only divested from 5 companies in 1986, selling $1,214,480 of stock.²⁶ Swarthmore College began divestment in 1978, and by 1986 it had divested $3 million. However, dissatisfied and dedicated students pushed the administration to fully divest though a mass action of around 100 students breaching a closed board meeting.⁹

1. STUDENTS BOX LISTS 9I ISSUES ON CAMPUS/STUDENT ACTIVISM Folder: Divestment S. Africa Mainline Times Thursday, March 6, 1986. 35. 
2. IBID Saturday, March 1, 1986 The Philadelphia Inquirer. 3-B.
3. HCV PRESIDENT’S PAPERS ROBERT B STEVENS 1985-1986 B-Commonwealth. Box 16. Folder: Bryn Mawr-South Africa, 1986.
4. Sparks, Allister. The Mind of South Africa. “The Great Trek Inward”. 134.
5. HCV STEVENS PAPERS Box 16. Folder: Bryn Mawr-South Africa, 1986. Quaker and Special Collections, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.
6. MARY PATTERSON MCPHERSON PAPERS Correspondence, Subjects 9/10, Se-Sw Special Collections Dept., Bryn Mawr College Library Box 59 of 82 Folder: South African 1984-88
7. HCV STEVENS PAPERS. Pr-So Box 20 Folder: South Africa April-October 1985. 
8. HCV STEVENS PAPERS. Box 16 Folder: Bryn Mawr- South Africa.
9. Jones, Hannah. 2010. “Swarthmore College students win divestment from apartheid South Africa, 1978-1989.” Global Nonviolent Action Database. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/swarthmore-college-students-win-divestment-apartheid-south-africa-1978-1989