Patricia L. Beeman (b. 1925, d. 1996), of East Lansing, was a passionate friend of Africa and of racial justice in Southern Africa and the United States. From the 1970s to the 1990s, she and her husband, H. Frank Beeman, worked tirelessly for social justice in Southern Africa. In that work, they provided extensive opportunities for education about Southern Africa and numerous examples of social activism on issues related to that region. The Beemans were among the founders of the Southern Africa efforts of the Peace Education Center in East Lansing, Michigan and of the Southern Africa Liberation Committee (SALC) at Michigan State University. For more than twenty years, they campaigned tirelessly for anti-apartheid resolutions and legislation -- on campus, in local city and county government, in the state legislature, and at the national level.

In the early 1970s, Patricia Beeman became involved with SALC, a group at MSU composed of students, faculty and staff concerned with the liberation of southern Africa from white minority rule. SALC worked to educate the university community about Southern African independence movements and campaigned for the passage of the East Lansing Selective Purchasing Resolution in 1977 that prohibited the City of East Lansing from using suppliers with linkages to South Africa. In 1978, SALC campaigned to cause MSU to divest of its stock in companies with subsidiaries in South Africa, making MSU one of the earliest major universities in the United States to take such action. From 1978 to 1982, SALC worked closely with Senator Jackie Vaughn, Representative Virgil Smith, and Representative Perry Bullard on a resolution calling for national sanctions against South Africa and a series of divestiture bills for the State of Michigan. From 1979 to 1984 SALC campaigned for the removal of the McGoff name from the Festival Stage of the Wharton Center for Performing Arts due to John McGoff’s public support of the apartheid South African government. This campaign also resulted in 1983 in a change in the university policy for naming buildings. In 1986, SALC publicly encouraged the MSU Foundation to divest its holdings of stocks of companies operating in South Africa. These campaigns along with parallel actions throughout the world provided international support for the internal struggle for majority rule in Southern and South Africa.

In addition to this social activism, Patricia Beeman organized SALC's numerous education activities, such as annual film series, on-campus speakers from southern Africa, photographic exhibitions, and an information table in the International Center for the distribution of books, pamphlets, posters, and flyers. Patricia Beeman’s life provides an inspiring model for community organizing to produce positive social changes that enhance human dignity. As her husband Frank once put it, “Pat felt that if people understood the horrors of apartheid, they would want to remove their support for such an unjust system.”