Browse the AAM Archive

The lead story in the June 1965 issue featured white emigration from Britain to South Africa. The edition advertised the AAM’s June rally in Trafalgar Square and explained the history of South Africa Freedom Day, 26 June. It also carried features on South Africa’s segregated education system and the apartheid economy. Under the headline ‘Jazz Quartet Hits London’, AA News welcomed Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor and their fellow jazz musicians to London.

The 1965 Springbok cricket tour was the focus of widespread protests. AA News appealed to all cricket fans to boycott the matches. This issue reported on the AAM’s 26 June rally and on celebrations of South Africa Freedom Day over the world. It exposed loopholes in the British arms embargo and reported on the International Court of Justice case on South Africa’s violation of its mandate on South West Africa (Namibia). Under the heading ‘Heroes of Our Time’, it reviewed ‘No Easy Walk to Freedom’, a compilation of Nelson Mandela’s  speeches edited by Ruth First.

This issue led on Lawrence Gandar’s exposé of the South African prison system. It also headlined an appeal to Labour Party Conference to support a comprehensive arms embargo against South Africa. It exposed torture in South African prisons and ‘forgotten trials’ in the Eastern Cape. Special features explained race classifications under apartheid and focused on the ‘unholy alliance’ between South Africa, Rhodesia and the Portugal. The issue also reported on the British Screenwriters Guild’s call for a government ban on the distribution of British films in South Africa.

The editorial in this issue of AA News set out immediate steps the UN should take against apartheid South Africa short of mandatory sanctions. It carried an article on student action against apartheid by the President of the NUS and reported on South Africa’s refusal to allow Maori rugby players to tour South Africa. It exposed the myth of South Africa’s independent judiciary and showed how all education there was segregated. 

This issue deplored the failure of the Labour government to fulfil its promise to make a stand against racism in Britain and in Southern Africa. It reported on a giant art exhibition held in London to raise funds for the families of South African political prisoners. It announced plans for an international conference on South West Africa (Namibia) and carried an article on a new right-wing Africa lobby group in the USA.

Following Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965, AA News argued that sanctions against the Smith regime in Rhodesia would fail unless measures were also taken against South Africa and Portugal. This issue also reported on the launch of a boycott by British academics of posts in South African universities. It reviewed the past year, arguing that the Nationalist Party in South Africa had consolidated its position, but that the spirit of resistance had been kept alive by courageous political prisoners.

This issue marked the first anniversary of the launch of AA News by setting out the AAM’s aims for 1966: to impose sanctions on South Africa as well as against the Smith regime in Rhodesia. It highlighted two AAM conferences – against the ‘unholy alliance’ between South Africa, Rhodesia and Portugal, as the colonial power in Angola and Mozambique, and on Namibia. It featured the academic boycott of South African and reported on the launch of the UK-South Africa Trade Association. It carried an article on the strengthening of economic ties between France and South Africa.

In the run-up to the whites-only election in South Africa, AA News revealed South Africa’s support for the illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia. It exposed the torture of South African detainees and reported on the setting up of schools by the Mozambique liberation movement FRELIMO in the liberated northern areas of Mozambique. In a centrespread and editorial, AA News highlighted how the apartheid government had abused its League of Nations mandate over South West Africa (Namibia).