"We wanted to appeal to a wide range of people, and show them that there are other ways to push for divestment than protest marches and takeovers," says Tina Smith '83, a GSAS student who was one of the founding members of the Endowment.
Members of the Endowment say the movement is not an explicitly anti-Harvard gesture. Unlike sixties activists, they say, they don't want to deny their affiliation with Harvard, nor do they want to reject it. Instead, they want to make Harvard a place they can respect.
"We started in '83 as a group of people who wanted to thank Harvard but to show that we didn't approve of its investment policies," says Toni M. McLaurin '85, who was the Endowment's treasurer last year.
The Endowment expanded its operation considerably last year. The group had two senior "agents" working in each of the Houses, and, for the first time, had a junior training in each House to take over this year's operations. "We're trying to get to the point where we're as organized as the class gift," McLaurin says.
The student activists who set Harvard afire in the late sixties had very different attitudes about money and Harvard and protest tactics in general. The students who occupied University Hall on April 9, 1969 arrived with chains and padlocks and placards reading, "Fight Capitalists--Running Dogs." Inside, the students voted not to do any willful damage to the building and to refrain from smoking marijuana while inside. As many as 400 students filled University Hall from the morning until 5 a.m. the next day, when police broke in.
One hundred and eighty six students were taken to jail for participating in the 1969 take-over. One of their slogans: "Only militant action can be effective in fighting the violence and exploitation perpetrated by the Harvard Corporation on working people in Cambridge and working people throughout the rest of the world."
The major demand of the '69 sit-in was that Harvard abolish ROTC, but it was anti-University sentiment and ideological fervor that characterized the anti-war and other student movements at Harvard and other schools at that time.
"The students today are much more moderate, much more concerned with decorum and propriety. In the '60s, students really felt they were starting a revolution," says Assistant Professor of History Allen Steinberg, who was active in the antiwar movement at Northwestern.
Today's group says the divestment issue does not elicit the same kind of response from students, who tend to see South Africa as an aberrant case rather than the symptom of a larger societal problem.
"South Africa is already such a pariah. Few identify it with structural problems of the system. Vietnam was different. You had bad guys all over the place," says activist Ball.
Ball says he hopes to see students start to take a closer look at racism close to home as they continue to examine the white minority South Africa regime.
"People have to be concerned about racism in North Cambridge as well as in Johannesburg," he adds.
Though the movement has yet to score any concrete victories, last spring saw at least an increase in interest among students, as organizers were able to maintain their momentum throughout the spring.
"When we had meetings in the fall, a well advertised one would draw 30 people. I could call one tonight and get 100 easily. We hope to keep that number growing," Silvers said last spring.