Vincent Klinger was born on September 19, 1951. During the 1970s, he was involved in several activist organizations regarding Southern African affairs. He was the Chairperson of the Coalition to Stop Rhodesian and South African Imports, which organized dockworkers and longshoremen to block the unloading of Rhodesian chrome, nickel, and asbestos. [there are several photographs in File “1975 Part B” of one of their protests]. The Coalition would also instruct workers on how to identify whether a docked ship was carrying goods from Southern Africa.

Klinger was also involved in the United People’s Campaign against Apartheid and Racism (UPCAAR), based in Philadelphia, as well as the Philadelphia Coalition for Justice for Angola. His organizations routinely collaborated with those in other cities, such as the “Baltimore African Liberation Support Committee”, the “Atlanta Conference to Stop South African Coal” and the “National Coalition for the Liberation of Southern Africa”.

Throughout Klinger’s papers, it is clear that his east coast activism was grounded in the struggles which he and his colleagues were facing at the work site. His reporting regarding protests among dockworkers sought to link the struggles of industrial workers in the USA to those in Southern Africa [see file “1975 Part B”].