Posters

One of a set of five posters – others in the series focused on Land, Education, Health & Housing and Law & Order. The posters were distributed worldwide through a network of anti-apartheid solidarity groups co-ordinated by UN Centre against Apartheid.

Poster asking shoppers to boycott South African goods. This was a reprint of a poster first produced in 1978. Some of the items incorporate images of the shootings of school students in Soweto in June 1976.

The International Conference of Trade Unions Against Apartheid held in Geneva in 1977 called for an international week of trade union action in March 1978. The AAM provided information and support for British trade unions taking part in the week. This leaflet asked them to disinvest from companies with South African subsidiaries and lobby the government to support UN economic sanctions against South Africa.

Solomon Mahlangu was a young ANC freedom fighter sentenced to death in March 1978 for his involvement in a gun battle with police in which two men died. The judge accepted that he had not fired the fatal shots. Together with the ANC, the AAM campaigned in Britain against the sentence. As a result, the British Foreign Secretary David Owen intervened with the South African government. Despite worldwide demands for clemency, Mahlangu was hanged on 6 April 1979.

The year 21 March 1978 to 20 March 1979 was designated as International Anti-Apartheid Year by the UN General Assembly. The AAM convened a co-ordinating committee which organised events throughout the year. This poster advertised a march and rally from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on 21 October, a day of international action when anti-apartheid demonstrations were held all over the world.

The National Union of Students elected Nelson Mandela as its Vice-President after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia trial in 1964. In 1971 the NUS set up a student network to campaign on Southern Africa jointly with the Anti-Apartheid Movement. This poster was produced as part of its Southern Africa Campaign.

The Katumba Brothers, 16-year-old Benchard and 19-year-old Leavit, were sentenced to death in 1979 by the illegal government headed by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. They were convicted of ‘carrying arms of war’. This poster was produced by the Zimbabwe Emergency Campaign Committee, set up by the AAM, to ask the British government to intervene to stop the hangings.

In the summer of 1979 the AAM campaigned to stop the Conservative government elected in May 1979 from recognising the Muzorewa government in Zimbabwe. This poster was produced for the AAM rally and march through central London on 30 June calling for genuine independence in Zimbabwe under the leadership of the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front.