Have you heard from Johannesburg?

Last night I attended the African American Cultural Center's presentation of "Have you heard from Johannesburg?" This film is about the the apartheid in South Africa and the role the United States government played in it. It took many years for the government to realize that sanctions have to be put in place in order to end the apartheid. At the time Ronald Regan was in office and he was adamantly against sanctions. He believed that by placing sanctions the people we were trying to help would just get hurt by them. Therefore several groups were formed primarily by the African American population in the U.S. One group specifically,TransAfrica America worked endlessly trying to gain the governments support to place sanctions. They did this by picketing in front of the South Africa Embassy. After a few days of this the police started making arrests which grabbed the attention of the media, which inevitably spread the word. This also grabbed the attention of some celebrities such as Stevie Wonder and Rosa Parks. Both were arrested when they participated in the picketing. The picketing lasted for 2 years, the longest in American history. After several years the members of TransAfrica America finally got into the White House. On several occasions they proposed bills that were directed to companies and colleges that called for divestment. Stanford and Columbia University's both had investments in South Africa. The students of these colleges set up protests and risked their grades and assignments to stand up for South Africa. Eventually Stanford and then Columbia divested resulting in millions of dollars staying in the U.S. Motorola Inc. also divested under pressure from consumers. In October of 1986 the Congress by a 2/3 vote signed the bill into action. This the blocked the billions of dollars in taxes that the U.S. government paid to the South African apartheid regime.
I thought that the presentation was great and really expanded my knowledge base.