ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how sustained interaction with established institutions strengthened the movement’s organizational capacity. Transformation of the movement’s organizational capacity is closely aligned with responses to openings in several areas. The search for relevance led activists to desire a stronger anti-apartheid movement among African Americans and more forthright organizational efforts to identify and exploit a black foreign affairs interest. Cultural programs flourished in response to South Africa’s employment of sports and culture to project more favorable images in the aftermath of international media coverage of state violence. Evidence suggests that an improved political opportunity structure in the mid-1970s gave anti-apartheid activists increased confidence about the prospects for movement advancement, prompted a pronounced tilt by other groups and institutions toward the movement, and encouraged broader, deeper public questioning of policy toward South Africa. However, movement effectiveness at provoking public involvement and institutional responses ironically set forces in motion that eventually led to movement decline.
