Anti-Apartheid Movement Takes to the Field

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 19, 2010) - Faced with governments reluctant to take meaningful action against apartheid, athletes and activists around the world boycott white South Africa on the playing field in the fourth installment of "Have You Heard from Johannesburg," a seven-part film series sponsored by the University of Kentucky's College of Arts and Sciences.

"Fair Play" will be shown at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in 213 Kastle Hall.

International boycotts against apartheid sports teams helped to bring the South Africa human rights crisis to the forefront of global attention and break white South African cultural ties to the West.

Knowing that fellow blacks in South Africa were denied even the most basic human rights, African nations refuse to compete with all-white South African teams, boycotting the Olympics and rugby, while also creating a worldwide media spectacle.

The sports campaign became the first real victory for the anti-apartheid movement, succeeding in culturally isolating the white minority in an area of passionate importance.

Lexington Herald-Leader sports journalist and UK alumnus Chip Cosby will lead a panel on Sports, Race, and Human Rights after both showings of "Fair Play."

Panel members include fellow alumnus and social activist Boyce Watkins; Kentucky-based newspaper columnist Billy Reed; high school coach Jock Sutherland; and three-time all-state basketball player Louis Stout.

Watkins is a scholar in residence in entrepreneurship and innovation at Syracuse University, as well as a social commentator, making regular appearances in various national media outlets, including CNN, "Good Morning America," MSNBC, Fox News, BET, NPR, Essence magazine, USA Today, "The Today Show," ESPN, "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" and CBS Sports.

Reed, who has covered sports for over 50 years as a reporter, columnist and editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Courier-Journal and Sports Illustrated, is currently working for Georgetown College where he is helping develop a speaker series and a new program that will emphasize character and integrity in sports and the media.

Sutherland, a legendary high school coach in Kentucky who was inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999, took three different teams to the Sweet 16 while an assistant coach at Alabama, also recruiting Wendell Hudson, the first African American to play a varsity sport at the school. 

Stout became the first African American to head a state athletic association when he was named the commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletics Association in 1994. Stout is also the author of "Shadows of the Past," an historical overview of the all-black Kentucky High School Athletic League.

"Have You Heard from Johannesburg" sheds light on the global citizens’ movement that took on South Africa’s apartheid regime. The seven-part documentary series, produced and directed by Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Connie Field, chronicles the history of the global anti-apartheid movement that took on South Africa’s well-established apartheid regime and its supporters.

The series spans the world over half a century, beginning with the very first session of the United Nations and ending in 1990 – when, after 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela, the best known leader of the African National Congress toured the world as a free man.

A&S will show each film in sequence on Thursdays at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. in 213 Kastle Hall  from Sept. 30- Nov. 11. Parents, students, alumni, children and other community members are welcome to attend one showing or all of them. Each film can be viewed individually. Parking is available at Parking Structure # 2 for the 7 p.m. showing.

The College of Arts and Sciences is embarking on a year-long exploration of South African culture and history with its South Africa Initiative, themed "Different Lands, Common Ground." This program hopes to engage the Lexington community in crucial global conversations and spark an ongoing exchange of ideas and promote awareness of race, human rights and political change.

For more information, contact Lauren Kientz at lauren.kientz@uky.edu.