ABSTRACT
Studies of US policy toward South Africa often refer to the establishment of the Free South Africa Movement in autumn 1984 as the breakthrough in anti-apartheid protest. This chapter explores how anti-apartheid organizations supplied a frame through which policymakers and the public could focus, interpret, and respond to political disturbances in South Africa. Administration officials claimed that US investments contributed to the modernization of South Africa’s economy, thereby rendering racial segregation obsolete. In the mid-1980s, the Free South Africa Movement (FSAM) dominated media coverage of domestic anti-apartheid protests. By contrast, the FSAM used scripts familiar to domestic audiences to make the case that sanctions were the logical step if the United States was to distance itself from the South African government. Apartheid had acquired a level of public salience by the mid-1980s that enabled activists to sustain protest drives but also propelled them to take risks with the potential to extend the range and depth of the movement.
