A Story of Coalition

Black students at McGill laid a claim to anti-apartheid organizing on campus in the McGill Daily in November 1985. At this time, the Black Students’ Network (BSN) declare themselves a “newly formed group” defined explicitly as “[catering] to the specific interests of Black students at McGill, and in the greater Montreal community.” In short piece, they clearly articulate that their stance against apartheid though they are not primarily an anti-apartheid organization. They call for McGill’s total divestment from South Africa as part of their stated role to represent the interests of Black people at McGill and demand to be present at an upcoming meeting of the Board of Governors addressing the issue.

Divestment is the crucial issue at this moment on campus, as it was in the larger struggle against apartheid worldwide. Campus groups organized around this issue and pressured universities to cut ties with South Africa. Because McGill was heavily invested in South Africa, it was an important target. Prior to the formation of the BSN, the organized anti-apartheid group on this campus was the South Africa Committee. Unlike the BSN, this group’s focus was South Africa and bringing about an end to apartheid. A way to understand anti-apartheid organizing at McGill can be read in these two comment pieces published in the McGill Daily. They appear side-by-side, written by different groups, working in coalition, with shared concerns and goals as well as differences in approach, political outlook, and strategy. While they both make clear their call for total—not partial—divestment, the SAC explicitly calls on all McGill students to boycott of classes and protest during the Board of Governor’s meeting to pressure them into divesting, whereas the BSN is focused on their right as Black students to have a place within the Board meeting and to exert pressure on the university in this way.

The demonstration chant published in French suggests a further gesture toward coalition. The McGill Daily is an English-language newspaper in an English-language university that had been the site of French-language activism by a group called McGill français. A rhyming chant in French at the top of the page suggests an awareness of the students’ location in a French-speaking city and desire to connect to their local environment. It also broadens the parameters of the struggle, as does the photo of Sharpeville. The references to both Botha in the chant and a notorious massacre in the photo point to the awareness of larger issues in South Africa and tie the local to the international, though none of the content of either comment piece refers to them directly.

The story of anti-apartheid work on campus is complex. Black student organizing in the 1980s was crucial, as was doing this work in coalition with others. Campus formations, dynamics, and politics are one part of this. Another is the multiple connections between campus and local communities, in this case exemplified by both French language use in the chant and the BSN referring to the Montreal community in their opening. Further, the way that campus organizing balances the local and the international is important, including the conceptualization of the anti-apartheid solidarity across borders.