College students nationwide staged anti-apartheid protest rallies and teach-ins Friday calling for American financial divestiture from racially segregated South Africa.
As National Anti-Apartheid Day was observed on many campuses, some of them once centers of opposition to the Vietnam War, an offbeat note was sounded by some Colgate students who organized a rally favoring continued investment in South Africa.
Non-campus demonstrations were organized in Philadelphia, Orlando, Fla., Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver and elsewhere.
About 100 students were arrested at Wesleyan University in Connecticut for blocking access to administration buildings, and 50 students spent the night on the front lawn of the building housing Harvard President Derek Bok's office.
'Apartheid is just the most evil form of relationship people can construct,' said Susan Keller, 24, of Larchmont, N.Y., a member of the Harvard Law School Anti-Apartheid Committee.
Exiled South African poet Denis Brutus attended a regional conference on apartheid at Dartmouth College intended to 'create an anti-apartheid network through which people ... could work together for a common cause,' organizer John Hueston said.
In Hamilton, N.Y., anti-divestment forces on the Colgate campus were outnumbered 7-to-1 by anti-apartheid protestors, but the organizer said they got their point across.
'People are afraid to show their support for more investments, because it looks immoral -- like they are in favor of apartheid, which isn't the case,' said David Lee, 20, president of 'Practical Defense USA' at Colgate.
At Colgate, the divestment rally drew about 80 people while the counter protest to support such investments drew about a dozen people.
Iowa State University President W. Robert Parks said steps are under way to immediately divest the Ames school of its stock in companies doing business in South Africa.
Parks, who made the announcement during a noon anti-apartheid rally, said the move would affect ISU holdings in 21 companies with a total market value in June of about $625,000.
A number of Grinnell College students tore down a mock South African 'shantytown' that had been built outside the student union as a nonviolent demonstration against policies of racial separation.
In Iowa City, about 150 people gathered on the University of Iowa's Pentecrest, some carrying a homemade coffin bearing 'Stop Apartheid' messages through the Iowa Memorial Union.
Students draped trees and buildings at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in red crepe paper to express solidarity with anti-apartheid forces in South Africa. Several hundred students held a teach-in at a statue of Abraham Lincoln, then marched to the Capitol to urge the state to pull its money out of companies doing business in South Africa.
The University of Tennessee said it would sell $575,000 worth of stock in two corporations with operations in South Africa and limit future investments to companies that agree to urge the government to end apartheid.
About 25 people waving signs proclaiming 'Don't Import South African Coal' gathered at a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Charleston, W.Va., to call for economic sanctions against South Africa.
Three days of protests were scheduled in California including a speech Friday by Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., at the University of California in Berkeley, urging full divestment by the school. There will be a rally and march Saturday in Oakland. Sunday will be a day of prayer.
College students from Atlanta's five black colleges arranged an anti-apartheid march in the downtown area. In addition, picketing and boycott continued at a Winn-Dixie supermarket, which has some South African fruit on the shelves.
