BSA Will Continue Fasts for Divestiture

Hours after a group of students ended their hunger strike calling for Harvard to divest from companies that do business in South Africa, a Black student organization pledged to continue the protest with a series of weekly fasts.

The Black Student Association (BSA) voted Wednesday night to institute a weekly day-long fast to show support for Black South Africans and to urge divestiture, Alan C. Shaw '85, the organization's president, said yesterday.

The group's entire seven-member executive board and 25 of its members have pledged to undertake the weekly fast, he added.

Past Fast

This week, a group of undergraduates--30 by the fast's end--and one professor ended a week-long hunger strike protesting Harvard's investments in South Africa. That fast, which drew national media attention, ended Wednesday with a service in Memorial Church that included remarks from Boston mayoral candidate Melvin H. King and State Sen. Jack H. Backman. But Shaw said the weekly fasts will seek to involve and educate students rather than following the tactics of the earlier hunger strikers, who sought to attract outside attention. "The only way Harvard will divest is if students take up the issue," he added.

Other Possibilities

And while Shaw urged all students to join the fasts, he emphasized that "Black students on campus need to get involved in this because of the relationship between African and American racism."

The BSA decided to follow up the recent longer strike with an ongoing last between "seven days leaves the University is a position to just want it our," Show said, adding. "We want to be a them in Harvard's side at least a little longer."

Dean of the College John B. Fox Jr. '99 said yesterday he had no objection to the weekly fast, adding, "I'm pleased whenever students find effective ways to express their views."

Fox said the recently ended fast had been successful in renewing discussion of South-African investments but added that an ongoing fast might eventually be considered inappropriate by some. "It's not an issue that can be solved on a week-to-week basis," he added.

Other Support

Cliff Cole, '84, a spokesman for the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee, praised the new plan yesterday but added. "It's important that it be carried into next year because we can't expect a quick solution. "Show said his group may continue the fasts next semester, but has not yet voted to do so.

The Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, an advisory body that offers advice to the Corporation about ethical issues arising from its stock portfolio, meets today and may issues a statement concerning South African investments.

But President Bok has said he does not believe divestiture will ease racial oppression in South Africa. "This is something I have thought about for a long time and very carefully, to I do not think it is very likely I will change my mind," he said earlier this week.

Backman this week sent a letter to Bok protesting Harvard's South African investments and requesting a meeting with Bok and the members of the Corporation to discuss the issue (see text below)

No Fat Tuesday

Show said some association members will fast each Tuesday for the rest of the semester on water and vitamins or fruit juices. Fasters will man tables--rotating to two different Houses each week--urging students to join the fast and circulating petitions calling for divestiture.

Everett I. Mendelsohn '57, professor of the History of Science and one of the speakers who addressed the hunger strikers earlier this week, said yesterday that the fast would serve as "a continuing reminder of the moral softness of Harvard's position on investments in South Africa," adding, "I would intend to join them."

Following is the text of a letter from State Sen, Jack H. Backman to President Bok:

Dear President Bok:

Thank you for your letter expressing your appreciation for my support of the bill for scholarship aid to Massachusetts universities.

However, I am distressed at the Harvard policy of investment in corporations doing business with South Africa, and I request a meeting with you and the Harvard Corporation members in this regard.

Earlier this month, I accompanied legislators from California to Texas to Georgia who testified before the United Nations Special Commission Against Apartheid in New York. That same week, we held a national conference on apartheid in our Massachusetts State House with representatives of over 35 states resolved to end investment in companies who do business with South Africa. Here in Massachusetts, our legislature enacted landmark legislation which requires the states to tell all its pension fund investments in firms doing business in or with South Africa.

More than 100 labor, religious and civil organizations in the Mass. Divest coalition joined Rep. Mel King and myself in sponsoring this bill.

South Africa is the only nation in the world whose continuous mandates racial segregation. At its care, apartheid is a comprehensive system of race discrimination, based on deprivation of economic and political fights of native Black people from birth to death.

The Africans who compose 85% of the total population are deprived of their rights to walk their own sidewalks and streets which by and large were paved through their sweet. As children they are prohibited home spending the public school systems as young man had women, they are banned from professional education; as adults, they are not allowed to practice their professions; even to sleep with their wives or live with their children in their homes--If they are among the so-called privileged few allowed to work in the modern and beautiful all white cities of their oppressors.

These are the reasons why we as lawmakers from around the nation strongly support the divestment. We do not share the confused notion of some of our government and university leaders who argues that divestment is not justified. We must question the sincerity of your action as President of Harvard, when this week you moralized about ethics, justice and responsibility among. Harvard lawyers while you rejected place to divest Harvard investments from corporations that feed the University through profits made in the exploitation of the South African Black population.

We must condemn the statement of the Harvard Corporation member who started that Harvard investment decisions are divorced from moral abomination you say, but business." That is a position we most profoundly reject.

If your political and education community is allowed to display such callous immorality, what hope can there be for mankind?

I look forward to hearing from you.  Jack H. Backman,  (Harvard Law, 1948)