"As someone who was active in the struggle against apartheid inside South Africa and later for two decades in the U.S., I believe it is extremely important that the history of the solidarity movement be documented."
— Dumisani S. Kumalo, South African Ambassador to the UN, letter to David Wiley, 20 December 2002.

• About the Archive
• Directory of African Activist Archives
• Activist Organization Multimedia
• Historical Remembrances
• Questionnaires
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• About the Project Director and the Advisory Committee
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The African Studies Center at Michigan State University is pleased to announce the African Activist Archive Project which seeks to preserve for history the record of activities of U.S. organizations and individuals that supported African struggles for freedom and had a significant collective impact on U.S. policy during the period 1950-1994.  One of the significant U.S. political movements in second half of the twentieth century, it included community activists, students, faculty, churches, unions, city and county councils, state governments, and others.  This democratization of foreign policy was unprecedented and it is important that the lessons learned be documented for the benefit of ongoing social justice activism.

This project will focus mainly (but not exclusively) on smaller local and regional organizations that supported the struggle against colonialism and white minority rule in Africa, especially in Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.  Their advocacy reached a peak in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.  They were involved in campaigns for sanctions against South Africa and divestment of U.S. companies that did business with apartheid. These organizations produced newsletters, pamphlets, leaflets, policy papers, meeting minutes, strategy papers, correspondence and visual material such as posters, buttons, photos, slideshows and videos. Many were ad hoc in nature and no longer exist, but individuals associated with those groups preserved vital records.

The project will locate material produced by these organizations, preserve that material by placing it in archives at depository institutions, and produce a database directory of the organizations and material. The project will arrange to have selected material microfilmed, digitalized onto CD-ROM and placed on the web in order to make the material available to scholars and others in the U.S. and Africa.

Please fill out the appropriate questionnaires. We suggest that you look at the preliminary Directory of Collections before filling out the questionnaires.

The success of this project will depend on people who were involved in the struggle helping us to locate the material produced by hundreds of organizations that existed in states and cities across the U.S.

Were you involved? Do you or people you know have documents such as newsletters, fliers, correspondence, posters and photographs? If so, we want to hear from you.

We can help place material in an appropriate depository institution that will provide long-term preservation. Even if you do not have a comprehensive collection, it is important to preserve what remains. We want to hear from you even if your material is already in an archive because we want to produce a comprehensive directory of all collections.

Even if you have a small amount of material we want to hear from you. For example, you may only have material from the years you were in college. But it is important to preserve as much as possible and several people from the same school can help make a more complete collection.

As you proceed with the questionnaires, please contact Richard Knight by e-mail, phone (212) 663-5989 or fax (212) 280-2442.