Obama’s anti-apartheid activism lives on in a college monument — and on the minds of these students

LOS ANGELES — Filled with tents and political signs, the quad of Occidental College in Los Angeles last week resembled other schools across the country where students protested the United States’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza. But in one way the liberal arts college stood out. Ahead of the quad are the steps where Occidental’s most famous former student gave his first speech . They now bear his name: the Obama steps.

In 1981, Barack “Barry” Obama was one of countless students nationwide pressuring his college to divest from companies affiliated with South African apartheid , a 20th-century policy in which the nation’s White minority governed over its Black majority, enforcing segregation and discrimination. Today, pro-Palestinian students throughout the United States are demanding that colleges divest from companies tied to Israel because they object to its seven-month bombardment of Gaza — one that has killed mostly civilians —  following Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Some scholars and students are comparing the historic divestment movement to its current counterpart.

The Obama steps at Occidental are marked with a bronze plaque and quotes by the former president who was influenced to take action, in part, by his women classmates . Over 43 years after Obama gave his brief speech, the long shadow of his activism was foremost on the minds of four current Occidental student protesters and one recent alum during The 19th’s visit to campus. Occidental has a student body that’s 59 percent women , and many of the protesters are young women who contend that their movement intersects with gender and queer justice.

Satya Zamudio, a first-year student planning to major in critical theory and social justice , and Latino studies, deems the war in Gaza as a feminist issue since women and children are reportedly overrepresented among the 35,000 Palestinian casualties . She also said she feels compelled as a Jewish person to stand with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Together the Occidental chapters of SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organized an encampment to highlight the plight of Palestinians, including how war has displaced millions of them .

“Our Jewish identity is being used right now by the [Occidental] administration to justify not calling for a cease-fire and not divesting,” Zamudio said. “The administration has a plaque commemorating Obama’s speech against apartheid in South Africa. We do have the potential to be one of the first schools to call for a cease-fire and one of the first schools to divest — Occidental College is the perfect school to do that.”

Angus Johnston, a historian of student activism who teaches at the City University of New York, said that divestment as a tactic originates from the anti-apartheid movement. It is a tradition that enables students to examine how their schools are financially enmeshed with global institutions and foreign governments.

“Divestment is a real point of connection between the anti-apartheid movement of the ’70s and ’80s and the movement we’re seeing on campuses today,” he said.

Last week, Occidental officials agreed to hold a divestment vote in June, so student activists removed their encampment on May 10. The college is one of a number of schools, including Northwestern University and Rutgers University, to reach an agreement of this sort. Officials at Evergreen State College — the alma mater of activist Rachel Corrie , who was crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while protesting Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes — have agreed to work toward divestment.

Corrie, who was killed at 23, has become a focal point for some college students, particularly young women, protesting the war in Gaza. Cynthia Spence, co-chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Spelman College, said that women have long played roles in social movements, from the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter, even though they haven’t always received credit for their activism. Socialized to have an “ethic of care,” Spence said, their consideration for others often motivates them to take political action. Their concerns about Israel’s war in Gaza are no different.

“We understand that women and children are often the overlooked and undiscussed spoils of war,” Spence said. “So, our students, in particular, their sensitivity has been heightened about what’s happening to the women, what’s happening in terms of reproductive justice, because we know that many hospitals were bombed and women can’t have access to reproductive care.”

The victimization that women experience in patriarchal societies, whether it’s war atrocities or deadly police force, lead them to see themselves at the center of policy debates even if they’re not recognized as vital to such discussions, Spence said.

At Occidental, the students advocating for divestment say they won’t let discussions over the issue quiet down. They view the upcoming trustee vote as progress, but they also know the school’s past: It has celebrated Obama’s anti-apartheid activism although it did not meet his demands.

A spokesperson for the college declined to discuss this aspect of its history.

Over a 12-year-period starting in 1978, students asked Occidental to divest from apartheid South Africa , but it refused , noted Matthew Vickers, a junior studying diplomacy and world affairs, and SJP spokesman. Now, student protesters are determined to see a different outcome. “We’re going to hold fast to our demands and fight tooth and nail to have them fully achieved,” Vickers said. “We will not rest until we divest.”

The anti-apartheid movement grew in the 1980s but dates back to the 1950s, Johnston said. Peace activists , concerned about the treatment of Palestinians, were traveling to the Middle East in the 1990s. Gradually, public sentiment about Israeli-Palestinian relations shifted.

“In the last 20 years, a new generation has emerged that feels very differently about this conflict than their parents’ generation and their grandparents’ generation,” Johnston said.

College students, he added, are more divided over the issue than they were over apartheid; many have personal attachments to Israel.

“There is a pro-Israel group, and it’s been easy for those who are trying to protest in solidarity with Palestinians, for their protests, to be interpreted as antisemitic. That adds a whole other dynamic that is more polarizing,” said Pedro Noguera, dean of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, who participated in the anti-apartheid student movement.

Occidental students say many community and faculty members supported their encampment and efforts, but some of their peers object to the pro-Palestinian sentiment on campus. Two Jewish advocacy groups announced May 9 that they filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education on behalf of four Occidental students alleging discrimination . One student said she denied being a Zionist for fear of losing her campus job. Another student said a professor described feeling invigorated by October 7. An Occidental spokesperson said the college is not currently under investigation by the OCR, which reportedly has about 145 related cases pending. The school has also held trainings and taken other steps to counter antisemitism.

Zamudio offered another perspective on the experiences of Jewish students, which includes her own: “We’ve rallied together a lot of the anti-Zionist Jews on this campus to support SJP, and what we’re seeing here has been really beautiful.”

A 2021 Occidental graduate who visited the encampment when it started on April 29 said this movement isn’t a trend but an important part of her life story. She did not want to be named for fear of being doxxed — having her personal information leaked for harassment.

“I grew up in a small town that was very White, very conservative and very Zionist,” she said. “It didn’t feel comfortable or safe to openly identify as Palestinian. So when I came to college, it was my first opportunity really to speak about being Palestinian publicly.”

When people would ask about her ethnic background, she would say that she was born in Jordan, omitting that she was ethnically Palestinian, she said. Growing up, she was too fearful to express it in her environment. At Occidental, she drew attention to the Palestinian cause, making SJP an influential group, current students told The 19th. Now, she is touched to learn that Gazans have been recorded thanking college students in the U.S. for their activism. To suggest students are following trends ignores that their activism may come from a heartfelt place and all the ways they’ve contributed to social movements historically, she said.

The divestment movement in the 1980s was met with resistance. At the start of his term in 1981, President Ronald Reagan “was opposed to divestment, opposed to diplomatic isolation of South Africa, opposed to sports boycotts and all of the other tactics that were being used to try and weaken the apartheid regime,” Johnston said. “That these divestment campaigns were controversial is reflected in the fact that students had to protest and didn’t always win.”

Noguera, who participated in protests as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said that in the 1980s, the UC Regents, the governing body for the university system, initially avoided divestment. They had sunk more money into the apartheid regime than their counterparts. But by 1986 the regents had voted to divest.

The size of the student body kept the pressure on the regents, Noguera said, an advantage Occidental students lacked. “There’s no comparison between Occidental and Berkeley,” Noguera said. “We were tens of thousands. Occidental has 2,000 students. So the numbers matter, because the fact that we could sustain a movement of that size made it very difficult for the regents because the regents voted a couple of times to reject our demands. We kept going and ultimately prevailed.”

Some Occidental College alumni involved in the anti-apartheid movement cited their ties to Israel when disclosing that they see no link between their activism and that of current students.  That includes Brad Weber, a 1981 graduate, who also does not lament the earlier movement’s unsuccessful outcome.

“Do we always get the results that we want? No,” remarked Weber, who said he stood near Obama during his 1981 speech. “But I feel positive about educating so many people about apartheid.”

Sophia, a junior studying critical theory who only provided her first name, said Occidental is hypocritical for spotlighting Obama’s activism when it never divested. After he transferred to Columbia University in 1981, students continued the divestment campaign, staging a shantytown to illustrate apartheid living conditions . Much like encampments have spread to dozens of colleges today, shantytowns became fixtures on campuses back then.

“The shantytowns became a magnet for more people,” Noguera said. University officials “definitely didn’t like that. But it was very similar [to the encampments]. They would tolerate it for a while and then if it got too big, they would say, ‘OK, it’s gotta go.”

Anti-apartheid students also faced speculation about their intentions. “One of the attacks on students was they were upset they missed the ’60s, and they were trying to relive a movement that they hadn’t been around for,” Johnston said. “The idea that students are entitled, that they are coddled, that they aren’t serious, that they don’t understand the issues, all of that was around then.”

Today, the backlash against students also includes accusations that they’re protesting because it’s “cool,” an insinuation Sophia resents. She said students are genuine about their activism and applying the concepts they examine in class to it.

Anti-war students nationwide have been criticized for their behavior, including occupying university buildings. Occidental activists took over the college’s administrative building last fall. After a group of mostly women seized Columbia’s Hamilton Hall in April, comparisons were made to previous takeovers of that building by students protesting the Vietnam War and apartheid.

Caroline Grauman-Boss, a 1981 alum who was a friend of Obama then, hesitated to compare the divestment movement she co-led with current divestment efforts. What they have in common, she said, is students working to hold their institution accountable.

“That is a fundamental right,” she said. “I’m delighted that students are speaking up.”