On 12 November 1987, a United Nations photograph captured Joseph Nanven Garba of Nigeria in conversation with Rev. Jesse Jackson at UN Headquarters in New York. The meeting took place during one of the most intense periods in the international campaign against apartheid South Africa.
Garba was Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Chairman of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid. Jackson, already known across the world as a civil rights leader, was also a United States presidential candidate at the time. He had come to the United Nations to address the Special Political Committee on the apartheid policies of the South African Government.
The meeting brought together two powerful strands of the anti apartheid movement. Garba represented African state diplomacy, Nigeria’s long standing opposition to apartheid and the formal machinery of the United Nations. Jackson represented civil rights activism, African American political mobilisation and the wider moral campaign against racial oppression.
Their encounter did not stand alone. It belonged to a larger story of resistance, diplomacy and global pressure. By the late 1980s, apartheid was no longer treated by much of the world as a purely South African matter. It had become an international crisis involving race, citizenship, political power, economic injustice and human dignity.
Apartheid and the International Response
Apartheid was the system of racial segregation and white minority rule enforced by the South African state from 1948. It restricted where people could live, work, travel, vote and receive education based on racial classification. Black South Africans, who formed the majority of the population, were denied equal political rights and subjected to a state system built to preserve white control.
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Resistance inside South Africa was long and costly. Political organisations, trade unions, churches, students, community leaders and underground activists challenged apartheid for decades. Many were banned, imprisoned, exiled or killed. Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the African National Congress became global symbols of that struggle, but the resistance was far wider than one person or one organisation.
Outside South Africa, the campaign against apartheid grew through diplomacy, public protest, cultural boycotts, sports exclusions, university divestment campaigns and economic pressure. The United Nations became one of the major international platforms where apartheid was condemned and debated. It helped keep the issue in front of world governments and encouraged stronger action against the South African regime.
In 1977, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 418, which established a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. This was one of the clearest signs that apartheid had become a matter of international concern, not simply a domestic policy dispute.
Joseph N. Garba and Nigeria’s Diplomatic Role
Joseph Nanven Garba was one of Nigeria’s most visible diplomatic figures of the period. As Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, he stood at the centre of international debates on peace, security, decolonisation and racial justice. His chairmanship of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid placed him in a direct role within the global campaign to isolate apartheid South Africa.
Nigeria’s opposition to apartheid was rooted in a wider African political tradition. For many African states, apartheid represented not only racial injustice in South Africa, but also an insult to African independence and dignity. Nigeria used diplomacy, public statements and multilateral platforms to support anti apartheid action and to press the international community to treat South Africa’s racial order as a global issue.
Garba’s role reflected this broader Nigerian position. He was not acting as a private individual, but as a diplomat within an international system that had become increasingly focused on apartheid. His position gave Nigeria a visible voice in one of the most important human rights struggles of the twentieth century.
The UN Special Committee against Apartheid promoted sanctions, embargoes, public awareness and support for victims of apartheid. It helped maintain pressure at a time when some governments were hesitant to adopt stronger measures against Pretoria. Garba’s presence in the 1987 photograph therefore reflects more than a ceremonial meeting. It reflects Nigeria’s participation in a sustained diplomatic effort to weaken the legitimacy of apartheid.
Jesse Jackson and Diaspora Solidarity
Jesse Jackson’s presence at the United Nations added another important dimension. Jackson emerged from the civil rights movement in the United States, where the fight against racial segregation had reshaped American politics and public life. His public advocacy often connected domestic racial justice with international human rights issues.
By the 1980s, apartheid had become a major concern among African Americans and many civil rights organisations in the United States. Student groups, churches, political leaders and campaigners demanded divestment from companies doing business in South Africa and pressed the American government to take a firmer position against the apartheid regime.
Jackson’s appearance at the United Nations reflected this wider connection between the African American freedom struggle and the South African liberation struggle. His meeting with Garba showed that apartheid had created a bridge between African diplomacy and diaspora activism. It was a reminder that the struggle against racial rule in South Africa resonated far beyond the African continent.
What the Meeting Represented
The meeting between Garba and Jackson was significant because it showed how apartheid was being confronted from different directions. African diplomats challenged it in international institutions. South Africans resisted it inside the country. Exiles and liberation movements mobilised abroad. Civil rights leaders, students, unions, churches, musicians and ordinary citizens kept the issue alive in public debate.
The encounter also showed how apartheid became a shared moral question. For Garba, it was an African and international diplomatic crisis. For Jackson, it was part of a wider struggle against racial injustice. Their conversation at the United Nations captured the way these struggles overlapped.
By 1987, South Africa was under growing pressure. The apartheid government faced resistance at home and criticism abroad. International sanctions and boycotts increased the cost of maintaining racial rule. The United Nations, African states and global campaigners helped make apartheid harder to defend in diplomatic, economic and moral terms.
The Road from Pressure to Change
Within three years of the meeting, Nelson Mandela was released from prison on 11 February 1990 after twenty seven years of imprisonment. His release became one of the major turning points in South Africa’s transition. Negotiations followed between the apartheid government, the African National Congress and other political forces.
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In April 1994, South Africa held its first democratic election in which citizens of all races could vote. That election marked the formal end of apartheid rule and opened a new democratic era under Nelson Mandela’s leadership.
Those changes came from a combination of forces: South African resistance, liberation movements, popular mobilisation, economic pressure, international sanctions, diplomatic isolation and changing global politics. The 1987 meeting between Joseph Garba and Jesse Jackson belongs inside that wider story. It remains a powerful reminder of the international pressure that helped surround apartheid before its final collapse.
Author’s Note
The meeting between Joseph N. Garba and Jesse Jackson at the United Nations stands as a powerful historical image of solidarity against apartheid. It reminds readers that the fall of racial rule in South Africa came through decades of resistance from South Africans and sustained pressure from African states, international organisations, diaspora activists and global civil society. Garba’s role reflected Nigeria’s visible diplomatic commitment, while Jackson’s presence showed how the struggle against apartheid connected with wider civil rights movements across the world.
References
United Nations Photo Archive, “Jesse Jackson Meets with Nigerian Ambassador on Subject of Apartheid,” UN7741252, 12 November 1987.
African Activist Archive, “United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid,” Michigan State University African Studies Center.
United Nations Digital Library, Security Council Resolution 418, 1977.
United Nations General Assembly, Biography of Joseph Nanven Garba, President of the Forty Fourth Session.
Nelson Mandela Foundation, historical records on Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, 11 February 1990.
South African History Online, “South Africa’s First Democratic Elections,” 27 April 1994.
