Throwing Mountains into the Sea

Reveals the overlooked role of the American Church in the South African anti-apartheid movement.

Throwing Mountains into the Sea details the use of economic tools—such as shareholder engagement, boycotts, divestment, and advocacy for sanctions—that the American Church employed to help topple South Africa’s apartheid regime. Ross traces this American solidarity movement from its humble origins among American Christian pacifists and seminary students, through the creation of ecumenical institutions and grassroots organizations, toward denominational divestment, alongside the church’s role in the imposition of American sanctions, and finally, to the country’s first democratic election, at which American church organizations and clergy served as observers.

While many books have covered the anti-apartheid movement in the US, South Africa, and elsewhere, none has yet focused on the role of American churches in this global effort, even though American clergy, congregations, Christian organizations, and denominations exercised considerable economic and political power over the South African government and the corporations that supported it. The impact of this movement has stretched beyond the end of apartheid. It has also informed and inspired contemporary struggles, including the Palestinian boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, the fossil fuel divestment campaign, and the Movement for Black Lives. Throwing Mountains into the Sea provides a detailed and colorful account of a decades-long and ultimately successful effort to tear down a seemingly intractable imperial power. In so doing, the book provides grounds for hope in an increasingly despairing world.