‘It’s a Policy Matter, Not a Racial Matter’: Athlete Activism and Symbiotic Struggles against Apartheid in US Track and Field of the Early 1970s

Abstract

In June 1972, a coalition of athletes at the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Men’s National Outdoor Track and Field Championships leveraged the power of a collective sport boycott as an effective tool for confronting apartheid policies in South Africa. Reminiscent of an earlier fight in which American athletes under the auspices of the Olympic Project for Human Rights demanded that the International Olympic Committee bar South Africa from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, athletes four years later pressed administrators to exclude three white South Africans from the 1972 AAU title meet. The proposed walkout was also part of an athlete-led assault on AAU control of track and field that had aggressively denied a voice as well as economic benefit to the athletes themselves. This hitherto unexamined episode represented a pivotal moment as American track and field athletes of that era awakened to the power of the boycott to bring meaningful pressure to bear against the egregious policies of apartheid while also advancing their opportunities to share in the governance of their sport and to monetize their athletic abilities. The protest contributed to the isolation of apartheid South Africa in sport and served as a bold expression by American athletes of their disenchantment with the AAU.