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Recent Posts
- Just after the Depression years, the Grand Rapids City Government provided direct relief and created a public works project for those unemployed
- Some examples of the conditions for blacks in Grand Rapids and what types of discrimination blacks faced on a daily basis in the early part of the 20th Century
- “Maybe America has forgotten how smoke smells”: The state of Black Grand Rapids from the perspective of Paul I Phillips in the mid-1970s
- African Americans from Grand Rapids who were part of the US Civil War
- 1970 document sheds light on the housing crisis in Grand Rapids and the lack of political will to solve it
Category Archives: Anti-Apartheid Movement
Artwork highlights a People’s History in Grand Rapids – Print #10 – the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement
Last semester, art students in Brett Colley’s class on printmaking, invited me to come talk about the Grand Rapids People’s History Project. The intent of the class was to have students investigate their own part of a People’s History of … Continue reading
Learning from the past: How previous Social Movements impact todays efforts in Grand Rapids
One important aspect of understanding the role that social movements have played throughout history, is what we can learn from them that might impact how we organize for justice today. One of the more dynamic global justice movements today is … Continue reading
Archival photo of Anti-Apartheid Protest in Grand Rapids
Thanks to Barb Lester, we wanted to post this picture from the early 1980s. The South African Anti-Apartheid Working Group of the Institute for Global Education organized a protest outside a local company that was selling South African coins known … Continue reading
What kind of response did a Grand Rapids CRC Pastor get from the Prime Minister of South Africa in 1954 when asking about the system of Apartheid?
Since December of 2014, we have been engaged in research on the movement in Grand Rapids to end the system of Apartheid in South Africa. Like most of the international anti-Apartheid movement, Grand Rapids engaged in education, confronting government and … Continue reading
The Kent County Commission was complicit in South African Apartheid
Last week we posted a piece on the campaign to get the Grand Rapids Public School Board to take a stand against South African Apartheid in 1985. The School Board, in this instance, voted 7 – 2 in favor of … Continue reading
Grand Rapids Public School Board took a stand against Apartheid in 1985
As our research moves forward on the history of the Grand Rapids movement against South African Apartheid, we continue to find important outcomes of the grassroots organizing that took place in the 1970s and 80s. Recently, we posted the second … Continue reading
Doug Van Doren on the Grand Rapids Anti-Apartheid Movement
This interview is with Rev. Doug Van Doren, pastor at Plymouth United Church of Christ in Grand Rapids. The interview is 17 minutes and 30 seconds in length. Doug talks about his own beginnings in the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, … Continue reading
Archival Anti-Apartheid Flyer from early 1980s Michigan
Recently, we have posted an archival poster that was used in West Michigan by the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement and the second part of a two-part article on the Roots of the Roots of the South African Anti-Apartheid Campaign in … Continue reading
The Roots of the South African Anti-Apartheid Campaign in Grand Rapids – Part II
Last month we posted the first part of a two part series on the roots of the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement in Grand Rapids. Here is part two, which looks at the work done that led to the City of … Continue reading
Archival poster from the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the 1970s
The poster here was recently discovered in the South African Anti-Apartheid archives held by Mark Kane. Mark was involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement first through his work with the American Friends Service Committee in West Michigan and later with the … Continue reading
Grand Rapids People's History Project 