May 2, 2024 | News | By Taylor Lynch
McHughes Hall, the community space above The Preserve, welcomed over 100 audience members on Tuesday for a discussion on divestment efforts past and present. The event, titled “Legacies of Activism: Anti-Apartheid Divestment, and Colorado College,” hosted a panel of six former CC students and one former librarian who spoke about their experiences regarding Apartheid-related protest and divestment efforts in the 1980s.
The event was sponsored by the history department, and moderated by Associate Professor of History Jane Murphy, and Assistant Professor of History Danielle Sanchez.
According to Murphy, the event was derived from the usage of Colorado College archives across the history department and specifically inspired by Sanchez’s “Global Africa” class, which focuses on Apartheid and African history post-1960.
Through Colorado College Archives, Murphy, Sanchez and their colleagues identified student organizers of divestment efforts in the 1980s and contacted the panelists: Matt Case ’88, Teddy Materra ’88, Pascal Gasirabo ’88, Francie Gallacher-Anderson ’86, Kiernan Hixon, and Cat Finney.
According to Matt Case, the divestment movement of the 1980s was derived from political turmoil in the spring of 1985, when the U.S., under the Reagan administration, was engaged in the Cold War and the attempted destabilization of Central American governments. After being contacted by anti-Apartheid divestment efforts from student organizers at the University of Santa Cruz, Case, Materra, Gasirabo and Gallcher-Anderson formed Colorado College Community Against Apartheid (CCCAA).
“We chose to name ourselves ‘Colorado College Community Against Apartheid’ to include family, staff, neighbors, and not just students,” said Case. The CCCAA took numerous actions from 1985-1988 which aimed to get the Board of Trustees to divest from South Africa and beneficiaries of Apartheid. Their events included an initial protest with 300 activists, a teach-in at Shove Chapel, a “shanty-town” style encampment on Tava Quad, marches and petitions.
Although Colorado College did not join 167 other American universities who committed to divestment from South Africa in the 1980s, the panelists had much to say about the impact of their work.
“Even if we didn’t achieve something, we wanted to achieve the consciousness of the people, waking up people who were sleeping to acknowledge the injustice that was going on,” said Pascal Gasirbo, an international student from Rwanda who credits his call to activism to his lived experience.
Teddy Materra, an international student raised in a family of activists in South Africa, said that CCCAA divestment efforts, “spoke to many other struggles across the world, [which] was effective in raising the consciousness of Colorado College students.”
Kiernan Hixon, who enrolled at Colorado College in 1988, said that by the time he arrived on campus, divestment took a different approach as many of CCCAA’s founders had graduated and divestment calls had not succeeded.
“I think our activism was different in a way. We were saying we can’t not be heard, we can’t not say what we think. We need you to know this and this is where we stand,” Hixon said.
Cat Finney, who now works at Central Oregon Community College, participated in CCCAA activism during her time as a librarian of CC. To the point of her involvement as a staff member, Finney noted, “I have never let my staff identity get in the way of doing the right thing,” Finney said. “You can be an activist for the rest of your life.”
After the panelists offered introductions and remarks about their anti-Apartheid work in the 1980s, the discussion was opened to a question-and-answer period. CC community members asked about hostility targeted at CCCAA events and members, to which panelists had differing responses.
“They were a friend to us,” Gasirbo said in reference to security guards who did not exercise aggression toward protestors during a CCCAA Armstrong Hall occupation.
“I don’t remember any hostility,” said Gallacher-Anderson, a political science student who recalled classes with former Republican House Representative Liz Cheney. “Although Liz Cheney and I were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, we had debates all the time and we would just walk away from each other. I don’t remember ever feeling like we couldn’t speak.”
Mattera had a different take on hostility and activist safety during his time on campus, “Colorado College was a protected environment, and within it, there were certain people that had the privilege of protection from what some of the other students were going through.”
Mattera, a person of color, recounted an experience where while walking to Poor Richard’s in a CCCAA t-shirt, a driver rolled down their window and spit tobacco at him.
“I was constantly aware of a level of hostility in Colorado Springs. It is a threatening atmosphere,” said Mattera. “There is a subtlety in the way that racism operates that [white students] might be blind to. It is an experience of people of color.”
Another subject tackled by the panel was the current administration’s actions against student activists, specifically relating to the March 3 library sit-in, in which roughly thirty protesters occupied the second floor of Tutt Library. One audience member asked what advice the panelists had for protecting fellow activists from peers and the administration.
“It terrifies me to even hear that question,” said Case. “I’m getting a sense of what the campus community is like and it sends a chill through my bones.”
Hixon responded to sanctions brought upon student protesters. “I can’t believe the admin is doing this shit. Straight up. Intellectual freedom is a thing, to have a voice, to have information, to be able to demonstrate… I’m sorry that the stuff we started building in the 80s didn’t last long enough to provide you with an umbrella to deal with this kind of fucked up shit.”
Other panelists noted that solidarity was very important in protecting protestors.
“Get connected to your fellow activists,” said Finney. “You might not otherwise be friends, but get connected and care about each other. People might be having a much different experience from you based on where they are and the huge spiral of privilege and oppression…Finally, know your rights.”
“It is important to get the support of the people who share your ideas. If you are alone you are fighting a fight that is not easy,” said Gasirabo.
Having worked in national campaigning for the Central American solidarity movement in the 1980s, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Colorado College Activism Institute Eric Popkin offered support to student protestors during the Q&A. “We are with you, there is historical precedent for your work, and we can provide relevant information to you,” said Popkin.
Historical precedence was a driving factor behind the history department’s theorization of the panel, according to Murphy.
“Historians tend to hate the expression, ‘If you don’t learn from the past you’re doomed to repeat it.’ Instead we want to think about how the past offers possibilities and resonances for how we think about today,” Murphy said.
The Q&A featured remarks from another Colorado College faculty member who emphasized the importance and faculty support of a college education that cultivates political consciousness, and an academic environment where students can speak without fear. The faculty member announced the formation of a student-faculty divestment working group, whose goal is “to create a well-researched document/petition that makes a moral case for divestment to the CC community.” The faculty member has chosen to remain anonymous for the purpose of this article due to fear of administrative repercussions.
This collaborative student-faculty divestment working group has manifested in part as an open letter to President L. Song Richardson and Interim President Manya Whitaker condemning CC administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. The letter has been signed by nearly 100 faculty members.
In final words of wisdom to campus activists, Gasirbo encouraged students to use their time at CC to make an impact.
“You have to use your time at college, because it’s a community that can come together and change things. Once you come out [of college] you are fighting your own fight without having people around you that can help you out. My time at CC was a really important step in my life where I was surrounded by people who had the same ideas and were willing to change something which was wrong… Everyone has to go into themselves and think what can I do to fight against the injustice that’s going on in the world?”