"AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL" ILWU Local 10 and the Fight against Apartheid

Abstract

Abstract This article recovers the valuable role of perhaps the most important union in the U.S. anti-apartheid struggle, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The ILWU first criticized apartheid in 1948 and most dramatically demonstrated its longtime commitment to democratic racial equality in South Africa through its refusal to unload South African cargo for eleven days in 1984. This case study documents and analyzes how rank-and-file longshore workers, Black and white, consciously linked domestic and international struggles for racial equality and working-class power. Generally, the history of the U.S. anti-apartheid struggle has neglected labor’s role, but Local 10’s actions demonstrate why unions demand inclusion in this historiography.