Barclays Bank was the biggest bank in South Africa and Namibia. This leaflet set out the many ways in which it supported the apartheid government. Anti-apartheid supporters campaigned for Barclays to withdraw from South Africa and Namibia from 1970 until the bank pulled out in 1986.
Students played a big part in the campaign to force Barclays Bank to withdraw from South Africa. This poster was displayed in student unions to persuade students not to bank with Barclays. By the mid-1980s Barclays share of student accounts had fallen to 17 per cent and this was a big factor in the bank’s decision to withdraw from South Africa in 1986.
A supporter of End Loans to Southern Africa (ELTSA) at a Barclays cashpoint on Victoria Street, central London, 16 June 1985. His P W Botha mask symbolised Barclays Bank’s support for the apartheid regime.
US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and Sam McCluskie of the National Union of Seamen joined a picket of the Shell Centre in London in November 1985. Protesters were asking Shell and BP to end their operations in South Africa and Namibia.
Hackney and Tower Hamlets AA Group outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall in east London in 1985. They were protesting outside an exhibition sponsored by Barclays Bank. Barclays was the biggest high street bank in South Africa.
Anti-apartheid supporters in Penzance, Cornwall ask passers-by not to bank with Barclays in February 1986.
In 1981 anti-apartheid campaigners set up a Barclays Shadow Board to monitor the bank’s activities in South Africa. Every year between 1981 and 1986 the Board produced an annual report showing how Barclays was supporting apartheid. This is the Board’s report for 1981. As a result of a 16-year campaign against its operations in Southern Africa Barclays pulled out in 1986.
