It could have been a scene from the civil rights movement of the 1960s: a large crowd of demonstrators, most of them black, marching in peaceful protest down an avenue in Washington, chanting slogans and carrying signs. But the series of rallies that have been taking place on Embassy Row during the past two weeks are against racism in another country: the apartheid government of South Africa. Demonstrators, including such prominent black Americans as Coretta Scott King, Arthur Ashe and Harry Belafonte, called for the release of 13 black labor leaders who were recently arrested and imprisoned without charges in South Africa. By week's end 15 protesters had been arrested for entering and then refusing to leave the South African embassy or for crossing police lines. Congressmen Ronald Dellums of California and John Conyers of Michigan were among those who spent a night in a district jail.
Demonstrations are expected to be expanded this week to 13 other U.S. cities where South Africa has consulates or business offices. David Scott, an official of TransAfrica, the group that orchestrated the protest, said that the goal of the demonstrations "is to get the Reagan Administration to change its accommodationist policy toward South Africa."