Fair Play

Faced with governments reluctant to take meaningful action against the apartheid regime, athletes and activists around the world hit white South Africa where it hurts: on the playing field. International boycotts against apartheid sports teams help bring the human rights crisis in South Africa to the forefront of global attention and sever white South Africans' cultural ties to the West. Knowing that fellow blacks in South Africa were denied even the most basic human rights - let alone the right to participate in international sports competitions - African nations refuse to compete with all-white South African teams, boycotting the Olympics and creating a worldwide media spectacle that forces the International Olympic Committee to ban apartheid teams from future games. The Africa-led coalition leads the fight to exclude South Africa from soccer, boxing, track, cycling, judo, fencing, gymnastics, volleyball and numerous other competitions, barring South African teams from nearly all sports events by the 1970s. Only South Africa's world champion rugby team remains, and citizens in key western countries where rugby is played take to the fields to close the last door on apartheid sports. The sports campaign becomes the anti-apartheid movement's first victory and succeeds in culturally isolating the white minority in an arena of passionate importance.