Article

Abstract

Between 1968 and 1976, independent African nations threatened successive Olympic boycotts focused on apartheid South Africa and white-minority ruled Rhodesia. These three consecutive campaigns in Mexico City (1968), Munich (1972), and Montreal (1976) show how African states exerted influence using Olympic participation as a lever. African athletes and administrators succeeded in pressuring the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to exclude racially discriminatory regimes from the Games. This African-led activism recast Olympic politics and set the stage for the Cold War boycott battles to come. While the IOC sought to maintain its apolitical stance, it succumbed to African demands, turning the Olympics into a forum for anti-apartheid advocacy. By focusing on African agency, this analysis makes clear how Olympic boycotts were used to confront racist regimes, which hastened South Africa and Rhodesia’s eventual isolation from the Olympic Movement.