Bryn Mawr’s response to student protests was informed by a “Fact Finding Mission” sent to South Africa as a part of College President McPherson’s “Peace Studies” program. The “Peace Studies” program was launched in 1981, which sent students on Fact Finding Mission trips around the world. It sent students to Canada, West Germany, and Britain; Another went to Costa Rica and Nicaragua amidst the US’ ongoing involvement in arming Central American anti-communist militants; and to Northern Ireland and Philly to observe the impact of violence on youth development.¹ This program captures the interests of the college at the tail end of two decades of the Cold War as well as Global decolonial uprisings. The “Peace Mission” is almost the marriage of two generations of international soft power, religious missionaries, then the Peace Corps.

In January 1986, Bryn Mawr sent 4 Bi-Co students, a Bryn Mawr alum, and a sociology professor on a Peace Studies Mission to South Africa. Their trip was initially slated for the summer of 1985, but their requests for visas were initially rejected by the South African government. The Presidents of Bryn Mawr and Haverford went to the NYC consulate to make the trip happen. In the spring of 1985, they met with Leon Sullivan, the drafter of the Sullivan Principles, as well the American Friends Service Committee, members of the African National Congress, and the director of the United States-South African leader Exchange Program.²

The “Peace Missionaries” did a two week trip, visiting Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, the Bophuthatswana homeland, and a final stop in Harare, Zimbabwe. On the second day of the trip, the missionaries were detained by armed police in the Black township of Tembisa, after Bryn Mawr alumni Penny Chang ‘85 took photos of military transport trucks.³

They met with “advisors in government, resistance workers, businesspeople, teachers, the American Chamber of Commerce, and Bayers Naude, head of the South African Council of Churches”. They visited the lavish Johannasburg estate of Helen Sussman, the founder of the white liberal Progressive Federal Party, which revealed to the missionaries the racial-class stratification of the country.

Bryn Mawr senior economics student Elizabeth Edwards commented how 74% of the wealth is owned by whites who make up 18% of the population. She observed the spatial topography of Apartheid when traveling city to city, passing through radial zones, with Black townships on the outside, then a “band of Indian then colored homes.” She called this a “buffer zone” between whites and Blacks. The majority of Black people in townships lived in what Edwards compared to “Sears metal toolsheds”. Edwards noted how Apartheid created a class of Black people who wanted to maintain the status quo and lived in the “Black Beverly Hills” of the townships.³ Edwards was dismayed to see a reflection of the familiar in South Africa: “Johannasburg looked like a typical American city. I had hoped we would see something at least different from my culture.”⁴

Senior Rachel Baker noticed a culture of resistance from the grassroots. She noted the presence of political organizations, but also politicized student and church groups. Haverford senior Michael Paulson similarly was attune to the politics of resistance, located in education as a radicalizing force.⁵ The Soweto Parents organization described their mission to Paulson, “Education under apartheid divides people into classes and ethnic groups, produces subservience, docile people, indoctrinates and dominates, and is intended to entrench apartheid and capitalism.”⁶

Upon returning to campus, the students reported their findings to the campus community at a forum [pictured] and were even interviewed in local papers. Most crucially, they were to report their facts and opinions on divestment to the Board of Trustees. Three of the participants advocated immediate total divestment, one strong sanctions and conditional divestment, and the last opposed divestment.

Baker and Paulson strongly supported divestment. Baker argued that corporate reforms failed to improve the lives of Black South Africans. Paulson wrote “It is our responsibility to assist in bringing down apartheid as rapidly as possible.”⁷ Another Haverford member of the mission wrote in his statement about the support for divestment he saw on the ground in the resistance movement, saying, “they said it was helpful for several reasons, including keeping pressure on those companies to reform; keeping international attention focused on South Africa: and making a symbolic statement against apartheid. South Africans told us that symbolic gestures give encouragement and strength to apartheid’s opponents and embarrass and anger government supporters.”⁸

Edwards was very attuned to the modes of Apartheid, however she felt divestment had “outlived its usefulness.” She was the dissenting voice of the trip, opting for the college to focus on its power to pressure corporations and the government of South Africa. She proposed a strategy aligned with the college’s goals of leadership and corporate responsibility, writing “Instead of working against corporations which have the influence necessary to bring about meaningful change in South Africa, I believe the College should take advantage of its leadership ability, brain power and alumnae network to work with such corporations to hasten reform and find and implement solutions to the nation’s deeply rooted problems.”⁹ This emphasis on the alumnae network is fundamental to Bryn Mawr’s identity as a women’s college, creating girl bosses who could end Apartheid aka Owlification.

In the end, a third strategy that neither endorsed or declined divestment was embraced by the college. This strategy was similar to the suggestion by sociology professor who led the Peace Mission trip to South Africa, Robert Washington. He argued for corporations to engage in a pressure campaign by threatening leaving the country if the government of South Africa did not end the three pillars of Apartheid. It is important to note that Washington was the college’s first Black professor, hired in 1971 by the college’s fifth president.¹⁰

1. Bryn Mawr College Special Collections STUDENTS BOX LISTS 9I ISSUES ON CAMPUS/STUDENT ACTIVISM Folder Peace studies: Mission, Forum. Memo: “Peace Studies Mission”. 1984”
2. BMC speccol STUDENT ACTIVISM Folder Peace studies: Mission, Forum. “Peace Studies Goes to South Africa”. Audrey Silverman.
3. IBID. Main Line Times. Thursday, February 6, 1986. “Haverford, Bryn Mawr Students Spend Break in A. Africa.” Lisa Greene. 16.
4. IBID.Lisa Greene. 16; The Inquirer undated “Seeing apartheid firsthand: Group reports on its trip to S. Africa”. Maura C. Circcarelli.
5. IBID.
6. HCV PRESIDENT’S PAPERS ROBERT B STEVENS 1985-1986 B-Commonwealth Box 16. Folder: Bryn Mawr-South Africa. Paulson, Michael. The Bryn Mawr-Haverford College News, Friday February 7, 1986. Pg 10.
7. IBID. Paulson, Micheal. “Haverford 86 Peace Studies Fact-Finding Mission to South Personal Statement on Divestment Africa Submitted to Bryn Mawr College Board of Trustees February 11, 1986.”
8. IBID. Snipes, Howard. “Statement on Divestment”.
9. IBID. Edwards, Elizabeth “Bryn Mawr College and Divestment Issue: An Opportunity for Leadership.”
10. Garrison, Amell. “Bryn Mawr History: The Silencing Of BIPOC Voices”. Timeline. 2021. https://amellg.digital.brynmawr.edu/