Student Building Shantytown

Young man with curly hair uses hammer to nail board onto shantytown built in protest on steps of Sproul Plaza. Shantytown is covered in graffiti with protest slogans.

In addition to drawing from a familiar set of protest strategies—sit-ins, petitions, rallies, and blockades—students introduced the powerful new tactic of building shantytowns. This approach created a highly visible symbol of protest and evoked the harsh living conditions many Black South Africans faced under apartheid.

 

Transcription: 

The crimes of apartheid, the crimes of its supporters, UC Blood $ [missing text] BCM; No place like homelands!; Anarchy is for nice folks; No more blood $; USA kills; U.C. South Africa, partners in crime; Banned from campus; Divest now; Squat; [missing text] So. African investments not Barrington; Long live the revolution.

Date: April 2, 1986
Attribution: Photograph by Tom Duncan, 1986, Photographic Print Files of the Fang Family San Francisco Examiner Photograph Archive, BANC PIC 2006.029--B box 30, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.