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• 1 2019-10-23T18:22:44-04:00 Image from B-A-D publication MARCH 21, 1972 13 plain 2020-03-17T19:46:11-04:00

  Pictured above:  A black and white newspaper printing of an image of the John Harvard statue in front of University Hall holding the sign in bolded print “In memory of our African Brothers and Sisters who have died at the hands of the Portuguese, Gulf Oil, and Harvard University” captured by photojournalist John A. Day. Printed in VOLUME VII, NUMBER 12, MARCH 21-27 of 1972 the, since discontinued, publication B-A-D.

  The article by Harvard graduate and journalist, Dan Swanson, cites “dispute concerning Harvard’s ownership of 670,000 shares of stock in the Gulf Oil Company, which has vast holdings in Portuguese colonies in Southern Africa” (Swanson, 1972) as the catalyst for the protest. This article is evidence of how actions led by Black student organizers pierced the Harvard bubble and caught the attention of the greater Boston community. The sign was a searing indictment of the role of American capitalism in global suppression through a calling out of Harvard’s choice investments in corporations operating in Portoguese colonial regimes. The sign was posted between February 24th and March 6th in conjunction with a six-day occupation of Massachusetts Hall, the placement of symbolic grave yard in Harvard lawn by the PALC (Pan African Liberation Committee), and even dressing the statue in Ku Klux Klan robes.

  This sign was a move to call attention to Harvard's ambivalence regarding the possible involvement of the Gulf Oil corporation in supporting the Portuguese occupation of Angola and Mozambique. Best contextualized by the statement released by the PALC entitled, “Repression in South Africa: An Indictment of Harvard University”, the PALC cites the napalm and bombing of Angola and Mozambique people by the Portuguese as evidence of intense militarization of the region in order to regain control against the past successful freedom efforts. Harvard’s role as an investor in the Gulf Oil corporation is one of the “three important links in the chain which holds the people of Angola and Mozambique in bondage” (PALC, 1971). The PALC escalation of their actions after the unsatisfactory response to the divestment movement by Harvard's then-president, Derek Bok, who justified their involvement as serving as a moral check to the Gulf Oil company, crediting their involvement as preventing any escalation by the Portuguese. Professor and Scholar, Orlando Patterson, responded to Bok's justifications as untrue and paternalistic, as he presents evidence clearly stating the U.S.'s investment in Gulf Oil as the sole reason Portugal was able to maintain a presence in Africa, with their surge in capital covering military costs and monopolizing the means of production (Patterson, 1972).

  This movement - led by the PALC amassed a large following of Black students and White allies- speaks to intentional actions taken on the part of Black students in global decolonize efforts within Black liberation movements. Within the context of the Black Student movement on Harvard’s campus during the 60s and 70s, the focus on colonialism parallels the moves within the Civil Rights and, particularly, the Black Power movements to examine the condition of people of color abroad as intertwined with the condition of the U.S.. Similar to the public pushback against the Vietnam War, the sign implicates the U.S. and its major institutions as both supporters and active perpetrators of imperialist efforts.

  The line of thought reflected in the verbiage of the sign, centers a sense of global blackness to call into question the purpose of elitist institutions to even the select few Black people who are granted access. This is seen in the work of Baldwin and his lament regarding criminal western culture:  “The South African coal miner, or the African digging for roots in the bush, or the Algerian mason working in Paris, not only have no reason to bow down before Shakespeare, or Descartes, or Westminster Abbey, or the cathedral at Chartres: they have, once these monuments intrude on their attention, no honorable access to them. Their apprehension of this history cannot fail to reveal to them that they have been robbed, maligned, and rejected: to bow down before that history is to accept that history’s arrogant and unjust judgment.”  (No Name in the Street, 1972).  Fanon’s focus on French imperialism in Algeria and the role of the native intellectual within liberation movements and even Bell Hooks’ concern of the inclusion of Third World Women both share the concerns of Black Harvard Students maneuvering the politics of operating, and possibly cooperating, as a minority in spaces which, unchecked, may support them as individuals while perpetuating global domination. The signage had a clear ripple effect, such as the leaving of six Black track athletes who left the team, citing the sign and PALC efforts as their reasoning for critically acknowledging their role in holding the institution they participate in, accountable. The attentiveness of the Black community to the occupation of Africa, as displayed in the aforementioned sources, is an intentional combating of globalization of business with globalism in thought.