Browse the AAM Archive

In 1977 Hull students renewed their campaign for the university to sell its shares in companies with South African interests. This pamphlet set out the case for disinvestment.

In September 1971 the National Union of Students, AAM and Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guiné set up a student network to coordinate student campaigning on Southern Africa. Every year through the 1970s and early 1980s the network held an annual conference to discuss campaign priorities. This is the programme for the sixth conference, held at Loughborough University in July 1977.

In September 1971 the National Union of Students, AAM and Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guiné set up a student network to coordinate student campaigning on Southern Africa. Every year through the 1970s and early 1980s the network held an annual conference to discuss campaign priorities. This is the report of the conference held at Loughborough University in July 1977. It was attended by 98 delegates from 45 student unions. The conference asked British students to step up action in response to the repression following the Soweto student uprising of 1976 and for pressure on the Labour government to act against the racist regimes in Southern Africa.

The AAM asked British trade unionists to support African employees of British-owned companies in their demands for union recognition. It the mid-1970s it focused on two firms: Smith and Nephew, which reneged on its recognition agreement with the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW), and British Leyland, which refused to recognise the Metal and Allied Workers Union (MAWU). This leaflet was distributed at the 1977 TUC. After international pressure Smith and Nephew recognised NUTW in April 1978.

Anti-apartheid protesters picketed the South African Embassy on 11 October 1977, UN Day for Southern African political prisoners. They collected signatures for an international petition calling for the release of the Pretoria 12, 11 men and one woman charged under the Terrorism Act with recruiting people to undergo military training. The 12 included ANC veterans and students who had joined Umkhonto we Sizwe after the 1976 Soweto uprising. Eventually six were sentenced to long jail sentences and six were acquitted.

Anti-apartheid supporters protested outside South Africa House within hours of the banning of 18 organisations in South Africa on 19 October 1977. The apartheid government banned every significant national organisation opposed to apartheid within South Africa, including the Black People’s Convention and the Christian Institute.

After the killing of Steve Biko and banning of anti-apartheid organisations in South Africa in 1977, the British government voted for a UN mandatory arms embargo against South Africa. At the same time it announced it would veto a draft UN Security Council resolution imposing economic sanctions. This letter from the AAM’s President Bishop Ambrose Reeves expressed dismay at the decision to veto and asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister. 

One of a set of five posters – others in the series focused on Jobs & Wages, Education, Health & Housing and Law & Order. The poster shows how 87 per cent of South Africa’s land was reserved for whites and Africans were crowded into the Bantustans to form a pool of cheap labour. The posters were distributed worldwide through a network of anti-apartheid solidarity groups co-ordinated by UN Centre against Apartheid.