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Anti-apartheid supporters protested outside the Wembley Arena in 1986 when British boxer Frank Bruno fought South African Gerry Coetzee. Britain’s welterweight champion Lloyd Honeyghan later gave up his world title rather than break the sports boycott by fighting a South African. The protest was backed by the Black British Conference Against Apartheid Sport, chaired by former Sports Council member Paul Stephenson. World boxing champions John Conteh and Maurice Hope also wrote to Frank Bruno asking him to call off the fight.

Leafletting Barclays Bank customers to persuade them to withdraw their accounts was a regular activity for most local anti-apartheid groups. The leafletting sessions were part of the long-running campaign to persuade Barclays to pull out of South Africa. In the photograph supporters of Tyneside AA Group are asking customers at a Barclays branch in central Newcastle to close their accounts. Later in the same year Barclays withdrew from South Africa.

The AAM hailed Barclays Bank’s withdrawal from South Africa in November 1986 as an important victory in the international sanctions campaign. In this press release it stated that the campaign for Barclays withdrawal was the most sustained action ever undertaken against a major multinational company. But it warned that Barclays would continue to support the apartheid economy by continuing to cooperate with its former banking associate and by helping to restructure South Africa’s international debt. The AAM announced it would move ahead with plans to target other companies still involved in South Africa such as Shell.

In 1986 the Thatcher government introduced a Public Order Bill which limited the right to hold public demonstrations. The AAM took part in this protest outside the Houses of Parliament and liaised with the National Council of Civil Liberties to lobby against the Bill.

In 1986 a British-owned company BTR (British Tyre and Rubber) dismissed its entire workforce. The workers had gone on strike in response to the company’s refusal to recognise their union NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers). The strike was the longest-running dispute in South African history and the workers won support from trade unionists all over the world, including Britain. In the picture supporters are picketing the company’s London headquarters after taking part in a sit-down protest inside the building.

Supporters of North Shropshire AA Group marched through Shrewsbury in January 1987 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress.

Leaflet publicising a public meeting organized by Haringey AA Group on Education in South Africa. The speakers were Roger Diski, editor of ‘The Child is Not Dead: Youth Resistance in South Africa’ and educationist Elaine Unterhalter. The meeting highlighted the ongoing brutality of the South African police after the 1976 Soweto uprising.