Although anti-apartheid activism surged in the 1980s, this 1962 protest at San Francisco’s Pier 19 illustrates the movement’s earlier roots. ILWU Local 10 longshore workers honored a community picket against the Dutch ship Raki, refusing to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa—one of the first US labor actions against the regime.
Transcription: Java Pacific & [?] Lines; Nedlloyd Line; Support U.N. Resolution, Boycott So. Africa; I.L.W.U.! Please don't handle this South African cargo; C.O.R.E. protests South African racial discrimination; So. Africa connects Black workers who strike; Longshoremen! Respect this line, protest So. African racial oppression
Date: 1962
Attribution: Photograph, 1962, ILWU Library and Archives.