Boycott

Local residents in the Forest Fields and Hyson Green district of Nottingham declared the area an apartheid-free zone in 1986. This poster asked people to support the campaign. Like St Paul’s, Bristol, Hyson Green was a multi-racial area with a history of racial tension and community protest.

Local residents in the Forest Fields and Hyson Green district of Nottingham declared the area an apartheid-free zone in 1986. This letter was sent to local shopkeepers explaining the aims of the campaign. It told them that thousands of local residents supported a ban on South African goods and offered to discuss the issues raised by the boycott.

Press release announcing a campaign to make the Cardiff docks area of Butetown an apartheid free zone. The campaign was launched at a meeting at Butetown Community Centre, at which the main speaker was Jagun Akinshegun, Chair of Bristol’s St Pauls Apartheid Free zone campaign. The campaign was supported by local Labour MP Alun Michael.

Leaflet asking shoppers in Chiswick in West London to boycott South African goods. The leaflet quoted Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu as calling for a boycott and said that public pressure was already having an impact. It cited a South African trade body as admitting that canned fruit exports from South Africa to the UK had fallen by 18% in 1986.

Many local AA groups produced their own leaflets, like this one asking shoppers in Haringey, north London to pressure Tesco into withdrawing South African products.

The far-right National Front in the north London borough of Haringey distributed this leaflet urging shoppers to buy South African goods to show their support for apartheid South Africa. The AAM met with virulent opposition from a succession of far-right organisations in Britain throughout its 35-year history.

Members newsletter circulated by Chester AA Group in January 1987, announcing the launch of fortnightly pickets of the local Tesco branch, to ask shoppers to boycott South African goods, and a series of public meetings. The group held a concert ‘Rock against Apartheid’ on 9 December 1986 – ‘probably the best gig in Chester for some time’. Chester AA Group was formed in 1986.