Memories

The all-white South African Springbok cricket team that toured Britain in the summer of 1960 met with widespread protests. Andrew Burchardt remembers the dramatic events of the night when protesters in Sheffield took action against the Yorkshire v Springboks game scheduled for 6 August 1960.   

The 1969 Springbok rugby tour of Britain and Ireland was met with demonstrations at every game. Nick Chudley, then a member of Manchester University Institute of Science and Technology rugby club, remembers how he joined the protests at the Springboks match against North West Counties in Manchester on 26 November 1969 and how an undercover police provocateur encouraged demonstrators to run onto the pitch. 

Gerry Cordon remembers the student occupation of Liverpool University Senate House in March 1970 in support of ‘Five Demands’ that included an end to Liverpool University’s connections with South Africa.

Bob Hughes MP was the Chair of the Anti-Apartheid Movement from 1976 to 1995. He was the Labour MP for Aberdeen North from 1970 to 1997 and served as Under Secretary of State for Scotland in 1974–75. He now sits in the House of Lords as Baron Hughes of Woodside.

Bob Hughes shares his memories.

Zita Holbourne is a trade union and community activist, a human rights and equality activist and a poet, writer and artist. She is elected to the ACTSA National Executive Council, TUC Race Relations Committee and PCS union National Executive Committee. She is the co-founder and national co-chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK.

Zita shares her memories.

Peter Robbins was the chair and founder of the World Gold Commission. He was also an City of London metal trader. Here he recounts their campaign to impose a gold sanction on the apartheid regime.

Peter Robbins shares his memories.

Victoria Scott tells how her involvement in the London AA Committee changed her life – and how she told Nelson Mandela about it in 2004.