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On 26 June 1966 a crowd estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 people attended a rally in Trafalgar Square calling for majority rule in Rhodesia. This leaflet urged students to join the demonstration. At a press conference before the march the AAM released a Declaration on Rhodesia signed by 41 ‘eminent people’, including writers Brigid Brophy and Iris Murdoch, pianist Fou T’Song, naturalist Peter Scott and academics and trade unionists.

Letter from the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, supporting the AAM demonstration calling for majority rule in Rhodesia held in June 1966. The AAM worked closely with the governments of countries in the non-aligned movement, such as India.

In June 1966, Thames Valley AA Group organised a motorcade from Slough to Reading to publicise the AAM’s campaign for no independence before majority rule in Rhodesia. The AAM asked the Labour government to support UN mandatory sanctions against Rhodesia and South Africa. The ‘Rhodesia Month’ culminated in a march through central London and rally in Trafalgar Square on 26 June.

Postcard circulated to local anti-apartheid committees and student groups in November 1966 and August 1967. Local groups collected signatures to the postcard on high streets and in student unions and thousands were sent to the House of Commons.

In 1967 the Secretary of the MCC, Billy Griffith, visited South Africa and called for the country to be readmitted to the International Cricket Conference. This letter from AAM Hon. Secretary Abdul Minty to MCC President Sir Alec Douglas-Home asked the MCC to cancel all future tours by all-white South African teams and to support South Africa’s exclusion from the ICC.

The morning session of this conference highlighted South Africa’s alliance with the Smith regime in Rhodesia and Portugal, the colonial power in Angola and Mozambique. The afternoon session reflected the AAM’s disillusion with the Labour government. Similar conferences were held in Manchester in February and Birmingham in June 1967.

A delegation of MPs on their way to 10 Downing Street to hand in a letter protesting at a visit by three British warships to Cape Town in June 1967. A motion ‘regretting the visit’ was tabled in the House of Commons and a lobby of Parliament took place on 31 May. Left to right: Liberal MP and President of the AAM David Steel, Liberal MP John Pardoe, Labour MPs Joan Lestor, Joyce Butler and Hugh Jenkins, Lord Brockway, and Labour MPs Frank Judd, Michael Barnes and Andrew Faulds.

In November 1967 reports in the British press suggested that the Labour government was about to lift its arms embargo against South Africa. The AAM wrote to Foreign Secretary George Brown, who agreed to meet an AAM delegation, but failed to give assurances that the arms ban would be maintained. After protests from Labour MPs and three crisis Cabinet meetings, Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that the arms embargo would stay.