Trump’s Pick For Ambassador To South Africa Actively Opposed Fight To End Apartheid

As Black activists in South Africa fought against their country’s racist apartheid government decades ago, some on the American right felt they took it too far. One of those people who stepped up and spoke out against their fight was L. Brent Bozell III, the right-wing activist that President Trump tapped this week to serve as America’s ambassador to South Africa.

According to the congressional website, Bozell’s nomination was received by the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Monday. Trump had previously picked Bozell to be head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, but that nomination was withdrawn. 

Bozell has been a prominent right-wing activist for decades. He is the founder and president of the Media Research Center, a self-described “watchdog” dedicated to exposing alleged liberal bias. In the late 1990s he founded the Parents Television Council, which opposed what it saw as indecent content on the airwaves. Bozell’s son, L. Brent Bozell IV or “Zeeker,” was among the people who were sentenced for their role in the January 6 attack before being pardoned by Trump earlier this year. 

While Bozell’s career in American issues has been high-profile, his past foray into South African politics is less well known. 

Yet documents surfaced by TPM show that Bozell once weighed in on the fight against South Africa’s apartheid government. While that regime brutally enforced minority white rule and legal segregation with violence that included the killing and torture of activists, Bozell was concerned with aggressive action taken by the Black opposition. 

In 1987, Bozell was president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee. On January 28 of that year, he wrote a letter to his counterpart at The Conservative Caucus, a right-wing policy group, declaring that his organization was “proud to become a member of the Coalition Against ANC Terrorism.” The group was opposed to the militancy of the African National Congress (ANC), which was the largest Black nationalist organization dedicated to ending the apartheid regime. 

Bozell and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story. 

Specifically, the coalition Bozell’s organization joined, which included at least 34 different right-wing groups, formed to discourage President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, from a planned meeting with ANC president Oliver Tambo. Despite this pressure campaign, Shultz met with Tambo on the same day Bozell’s letter was sent.  

The ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK, which means “spear of the nation,” was founded in 1961 by a group that included the late legendary anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. The organization conducted bombings and guerilla attacks, some of which were deadly. Mandela, who is now widely seen as a heroic figure, spent 27 years in prison for his role in MK. A modern political party has adopted the MK name, but they are not a continuation of the original paramilitary group. 

Ahead of his meeting with Shultz, Tambo addressed criticism of the ANC’s militancy. He described it as a necessary evil in light of the brutality of the apartheid regime, which committed extensive atrocities including the murder of peaceful protesters. 

“We tried nonviolence for nearly 50 years, until 1961,” Tambo told the Washington Post at the time. “Then we decided we had to do what other people do — to embark on armed struggle.”

As part of its opposition to the meeting between Tambo and Shultz, the “Coalition Against ANC Terrorism” produced a publication that highlighted the ANC’s Soviet and communist ties. The group also held hearings in the weeks before Tambo’s visit that were presided over by the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), who was a prominent advocate for segregation here in the United States. Speakers at the coalition’s hearings included John Gogotya, a Black South African politician who led a moderate group that was later revealed to have been backed by the apartheid regime’s military intelligence operation. 

While Bozell’s coalition and others on the right were opposed to the ANC, Mandela and the group ultimately received extensive international support that helped end apartheid. In 1990, in response to widespread civil unrest and global sanctions, South Africa’s ruling white National Party released Mandela and other jailed ANC leaders. South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994 and Mandela became president. He held that position for five years, but the ANC has remained the country’s leading political party.   

Mandela died in December 2013. In the days after his passing, Bozell posted on the site formerly known as Twitter to criticize television anchor Brian Williams for engaging in coverage that, as Bozell put it, “mythologizes” Mandela, noting that Williams hosted what Bozell saw as more critical broadcasts about the death of conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher earlier that same year. 

Bozell’s nomination comes as relations between the U.S. and South Africa have hit a low point. In December 2023, South Africa filed a case with the United Nations’ International Court of Justice accusing Israel of “genocidal acts” in its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Bozell has been a vocal supporter of the Israeli government. 

In recent weeks, Trump and his ally, billionaire Elon Musk, have repeatedly criticized the South African government for its treatment of the white minority. Musk, who is from South Africa, has amplified conspiracy theories suggesting white farmers have been killed en masse. On Feb. 7, 2025, Trump issued an executive order halting all foreign aid to South Africa and offering refugee status to the country’s Afrikaner population, the white minority that ruled during apartheid. Two days later, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and issued a warning to South Africa’s leaders about their alleged mistreatment of “certain classes of people.” 

“A massive Human Rights VIOLATION is happening, for all to see,” Trump wrote. “The United States won’t stand for it – We will act.”