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Poster advertising an AAM fortnight of events to celebrate South Africa Freedom Day, 26 June 1980. The poster provided space for local anti-apartheid groups to insert information about local activities.

Poster advertising a rally on South Africa Freedom Day, 26 June 1980, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. The rally was organised by an umbrella group, the South Africa Freedom Day Committee, and the main speaker was ANC Secretary-General Alfred Nzo. The ANC declared 1980 the ‘Year of the Charter’ and the AAM distributed thousands of copies of the Freedom Charter during the year.

Memorandum presented by the AAM at a meeting with Richard Luce, Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, in June 1980. The AAM protested at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s statement welcoming changes in South Africa’s domestic policies, after police had opened fire on students in Cape Town. It questioned the British government’s claim that it had no standing on the issue of the release of Nelson Mandela.

Letter from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher commenting on the AAM’s memorandum of June 1980. She reiterated that the government had no standing in the case of Nelson Mandela, although she said his release would be ‘widely welcomed’. 

Poster advertising a march through central London on 28 June 1980 to protest against South African police shootings of anti-apartheid protestors in Cape Town. The march was the culmination of a week of daily pickets of the South African Embassy, 20-27 June. Marchers delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street calling on the British government to protest against the South African police policy of ‘shoot to kill’.

‘Racism in Sport’ tells the story of the campaign to exclude apartheid sports teams from international sport from 1946, when black weightlifters protested to the British Empire Games Weightlifting Federation, to the eve of the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok cricket tour. Its author, Chris de Broglio, was the co-founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). It was one of many pamphlets published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Part autobiography and part a devastating indictment of apartheid, this booklet by Joyce Sikakane gives a vivid account of life in Soweto, South Africa’s largest township. The author fled South Africa in 1973 after standing trial with Winnie Mandela. The book was published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

South Africa’s English language press played an ambivalent role under apartheid, with most media rooted in the white community and only exceptional newspapers, like the Rand Daily Mail, speaking out against apartheid. Even so, the National Party government enacted a barrage of legislation to ensure that journalists did not step out of line. This pamphlet examines apartheid press censorship. It was one of many published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.