Despite the controversy surrounding their actions, these students looked back on the shantytown as one of the most successful of their initiatives.

“It made the University administration pay attention,” Ross said. “They had to look over their shoulders.”

REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT

After administrators dismantled the shanty town, anti-apartheid activists were left questioning how to best proceed against staunch University opposition to their demand for full divestment.

Sit-ins and protests continued, coming to a peak a year later.

On March 24, 1987, members of SASC once again seized the limelight when their “symbolic blockade” of the Science Center ended in controversy and an unexpectedly strong administrative backlash.

South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown had begun his speech in the Science Center when around 20 members of SASC left their seats and blocked off the two bottom exits of the auditorium, according to a 1987 Crimson article.

The students, who sang and interlocked arms while blocking the exits, claimed their goal was simply to ensure that Kent-Brown walked through an ongoing rally outside the Science Center.

But Harvard University police officers intervened and escorted Kent-Brown out of the building as he reportedly shouted, “I better not be touched.”

Harvard administrators were prepared for the blockade and suspected that the students would attempt to protest at the event. Harvard Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III had organized numerous meetings with the students throughout the semester to remain informed of their plans.

Fourteen of the students were later found guilty by the Administrative Board of disrupting the speech and were placed on disciplinary probation. Originally, Epps filed up to six charges against each of the undergraduates, although some of the charges were eventually dropped.

FADING ACTIVISM

According to Mitchell A. Orenstein ’89, what was supposed to be a standard, run-of-the-mill protest became an overblown controversy. For some participants, the resulting controversy over disciplinary action and freedom of speech soon overshadowed their anti-apartheid efforts.

Overall, Harvard’s largest student movement of the 1980s began to die down in spring of 1987, and enthusiasm for the movement was not as strong as it once was.

“The energy in an activist group is never continuous at the same level. It kind of ebbs and flows, and there are all sorts of reasons why that could be,” said Rossinow.