Flashpoint: How a Little-Known Sporting Event Fueled America's Anti-Apartheid Movement

Abstract

Sports, race, and politics are deeply intertwined—just ask Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Naomi Osaka, or Colin Kaepernick. Derek Charles Catsam, an accomplished historian of race, social movements, and sports in South Africa, the United States, and globally, has authored an easy-to-read, fascinating, if perhaps misnamed, book. The book's subtitle contends the 1981 U.S. tour of the legendary South African rugby team, nicknamed the Springboks, “fueled America's anti-apartheid movement.” More accurately, the book focuses on the sociopolitical roles of rugby in South Africa and the world, including how antiapartheid activists targeted the sport because of its importance to white South Africans, particularly Afrikaners. Following a preface celebrating the first Black Springboks captain, only appointed in 2018, a strong introduction outlines the Springboks' U.S. tour, U.S. foreign policy toward apartheid South Africa and how Ronald Reagan's election changed the equation, America's nascent antiapartheid movement, sports boycotts in the global struggle against apartheid, white South Africa's fierce resistance to change, and the role of race in American sports. Subsequent chapters cover planning for the Springboks' U.S. tour, an Irish rugby tour to South Africa in 1981, the Springboks' 1981 New Zealand tour—which saw massive protests that rocked the nation—and the book culminates with several chapters on the Springboks' U.S. tour, with matches in Racine, Wisconsin, Albany, and tiny Glenville, New York. The U.S.-focused chapters present a blow-by-blow account of the planning of the events as well as the protests. The “Boks” destroyed every American team and, since rugby was an incredibly obscure sport in the United States, these matches drew only a handful of fans. For those interested in a film on antiapartheid protests of the Springboks, Connie Field's documentary series, Have You Heard from Johannesburg (2010), includes a wonderful episode, “Fair Play,” on Springbok tours to Australia, England, and New Zealand.