ABSTRACT
The role of the African diaspora, on both the individual and organisational levels in the anti-apartheid sports struggle, remains a neglected aspect of South Africa’s sports history. Beyond the role of the broad anti-apartheid movement and that of a few individual activists, very little effort has thus far been made to fully acknowledge the specific contribution of scores of individuals and organisations in both Northern America and Europe to the demise of apartheid. Organisations such as Americans for South African Freedom (AFSAR), later the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), which pioneered the establishment of a United States-based anti-apartheid solidarity platform and assisted in the formation and expansion of a nation-wide network of activists and sister organisations committed to fighting the scourge of institutionalised racism at the southern tip of Africa, have yet to be formally acknowledged in South African sports history texts. This chapter investigates the linkages, parallel struggles, and eventual convergence of the anti-apartheid campaigns of two seemingly disparate sectors in the diaspora, against the background of the struggle of black athletes (weightlifters) in South Africa (1948–1980) for nonracialism and social justice.
