It’s just a few weeks after the most conservative Republican president in a generation convincingly won a second term, causing many to despair. Across the ocean from the United States, a country engaged in apartheid was condemned by most of the world’s peoples and nations, but the pariah nation remained loudly unrepentant and possessed a powerful ally in the White House. Meanwhile, an impressive, increasingly large global movement of people stood in solidarity with those who had suffered generations of violence, injustice, and settler colonialism.

While this might read like today’s news, the above describes 1984.

At that moment, a small and powerful yet weakened left-wing union with a history of fighting racism, fascism, and authoritarianism refused to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa. Union workers downed their tools in solidarity with black workers leading the resistance inside their country.