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The Black Man and the Bomb: The interconnection between racism and anti-nuclear protests in South Africa and the United States

Political Culture and National Identities

Author: Max Tiel

Vol Master Degree, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2017

The thesis starts from the political context of the late 1970s when, despite detente, the US was developing its nuclear weapons arsenal, and apartheid South Africa emerged as a nuclear weapons state. Black campaigners against nuclear weapons emerged in both countries, and both suffered from racial discrimination, but the very different political contexts made organized opposition to nuclear policies very much harder in South Africa.  However, in both cases nuclear weapon developments were closely linked to an international context, and both movements also relied heavily on international allies.

Available online at:

http://hdl.handle.net/1887/52196