Just as the whole venture seemed on the verg of collapse, eight members of a Black students organization the fundamentalist Christian Seymour Society announced that they were beginning a one week symbolic fast (by eating only fruit), and invited the original fasters to join them. They stressed that the purpose of their protest was not to strong arm the University, but to redirect attention from the hunger strike itself to the moral issues involved in divestiture.
During the week, the group was deluged with endorsements from sources as disparate as the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid and the Cambridge City Council. State Senators, several Harvard professors--one of whom joined the last and students at other colleges also expressed their support for the fasters.
As the number of protesters doubled to over 30, the fast captured the attention of the national wire services local television and radio stations and even a liberal South African daily.
But the protest ended where it began. As the students expected Harvard did not budge, although President Bok and other administration officials held several meetings with a number of the strikers. An ecumenical service held in Memorial Church attended by over 150 students, marked the end of the project.
Even as the last was in progress, another group of undergraduates began a more direct approach. The students created an alternative fund to the Senior Class Gift called the "Endowment for Divestiture," that looks senior donations into an escrow account. The funds will be turned over to Harvard it and when it divests from firms doing business in South Africa, or when the United Nations "clears" the South African government by lifting its 1976 call for corporate withdrawal from that country. It neither occurs within 20 years, the money will be given to charitable organizations in the Harvard community.
The Endowment for Divestiture was the brain child of SASC, which suggested the idea to a group of about 40 seniors, many of whom had been active in campus political organizations the semester before. The newly formed Undergraduate Council supported the plan and voted to act as administrator of the fund.
Urging seniors to contribute to Harvard and make a statement for divestiture, recruiters for the fund--two in each House--managed to collect over $7000 from 360 of the 1500 seniors in just a few weeks. The regular Class Gift, meanwhile, netted $23,000 from 900 students. Although the total given to the two funds combined matched last year's contributions to the regular Class Gift, the percentage of donors fell by 20 percent.
Organizers predicted that the effect of the boycott would be proportionately greater than the money raised by the fund, because the effort threatens future alumni contributions. The seniors vowed to continue giving to the fund after they graduated, and have already chosen juniors to replace them next year. They have also contacted several supporters in each of the classes returning to Harvard for their reunions this year who will make an appeal to their fellow classmates for contributions to the Endowment for Divestiture.
As of yet, it is still too early to tell whether this particular form of protest will be any more effective than previous efforts to force the University to divest. But the Endowment for Divestiture clearly represents a whole new phase in the long-evolving divestiture protest movement.