Photos

A delegation entered Downing Street to deliver a letter calling on Prime Minister Thatcher to drop her opposition to sanctions against South Africa, as demonstrators marched up Whitehall on 16 June 1985. In the photograph are Zerbanoo Gifford from the Liberal Party, AAM Executive Secretary, Mike Terry, President, Trevor Huddleston and Chair, Bob Hughes MP, Hidipo Hamutenya and Shapua Kaukungua from SWAPO, Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg and Clarence Thompson from the West Indian Standing Conference.

Clarence Thompson, General Secretary of the West Indian Standing Conference, speaking at the AAM rally in Trafalgar Square on 16 June 1985. 25,000 people marched up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square on 16 June 1985 to demand sanctions against South Africa. Left to right: Jerry Herman from the US Disinvestment Campaign, Trevor Huddleston, Denis Goldberg of the ANC, Clarence Thompson, Zerbanoo Gifford of the Liberal Party and SWAPO leader Hidipo Hamutenya.

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.

Activists in the multi-racial area of St Paul’s, Bristol declared it an anti-apartheid free zone in the mid-1980s. Opposition to apartheid was so strong that the local Tesco’s stopped stocking South African goods.

An arson attack was made on the AAM office at 13 Mandela Street, central London, in July 1985. In the photograph AAM Executive Secretary Mike Terry examines the extensive damage done to the building.

On 20 July 1985 the apartheid government imposed a draconian State of Emergency in key areas of South Africa. As well as protesting outside the South African Embassy, the AAM met Conservative Foreign Office Minister Malcolm Rifkind to press for sanctions against South Africa.

Bristol anti-apartheid supporters took part in an anti-racist demonstration in Bristol City Centre on 31 August 1985. Although the national AAM did not formally affiliate to organisations opposing racism within Britain, many AA groups joined local protests.

Benjamin Moloise was sentenced to death on a trumped up charge of murdering a South African security policeman in June 1983. He was hanged on 18 October 1985 in spite of an international campaign for his release. Commonwealth leaders and the governments of the USA, France and Germany all called for clemency. The AAM held a 24-hour vigil outside South Africa House the day before his execution.