In 1948, South Africa saw the rise of the National Party, which sought to create a predominantly white government in a country where whites were the minority. To do this, they passed a series of laws that were aimed at limiting the rights and freedoms of Blacks in South Africa; this program became known as apartheid (derived from the Afrikaans word “apart”) and would remain in effect until 1994. African Americans found themselves feeling a strong kinship to the South African struggle for equality as they were still fighting a battle to gain a semblance of equality in America as well, despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When it was discovered by some of the workers at the Polaroid Corporation that the company was selling photographic equipment to South Africa to help create the passports that limited the freedoms of Blacks in the country, they formed the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement (PRWM) to create a campaign to force Polaroid out of South Africa. Despite their repeated efforts to get Polaroid to stop selling equipment to South Africa and to financially support the effort to liberate the Blacks in the country, the company refused to comply, prompting the workers to write a statement appealing to the United Nations Special Committee on Politics of Apartheid.