Free Mandela

Altogether nine British cities presented Nelson Mandela with the freedom of the city. In October 1993 Mandela visited Glasgow to meet representatives from each of the nine local councils. AAM President Trevor Huddleston presented him with a special scroll commemorating the awards.

Poster calling for the election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s President, produced for the ANC campaign in South Africa’s first one person one vote election in April 1994.

Leaflet advertising 'The Free at Last Party, a concert at London's Astoria to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as President of South Africa on 10 May 1994.

Jerry Dammers formed the Specials in Coventry in 1977. He was an anti-apartheid activist from his school days, and in 1986 founded Artists Against Apartheid to involve musicians in anti-apartheid campaigns and promote the cultural boycott of South Africa. He wrote the song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, which became an international hit and helped raise awareness of the situation of Nelson Mandela and political prisoners in South Africa.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom AAM history project in 2013.

Jerry Dammers formed the Specials in Coventry in 1977. He was an anti-apartheid activist from his school days, and in 1986 founded Artists Against Apartheid to involve musicians in anti-apartheid campaigns and promote the cultural boycott of South Africa. He wrote the song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, which became an international hit and helped raise awareness of the situation of Nelson Mandela and political prisoners in South Africa.

In this clip he taks about how he came to write ‘Free Nelson Mandela’.

Joni McDougall became active in Camden Anti-Apartheid Group in 1984. She later worked full-time in the Anti-Apartheid Movement office for the Bishop Ambrose Reeves Trust as organiser of the international conference on ‘Children & Apartheid’,  held in Harare in 1987. In 1988 she joined the Nelson Mandela Freedom March as one of the 25 marchers who walked from Glasgow to London as part of the ‘Nelson Mandela: Freedom at 70’ campaign.

In this clip Joni talks about the Nelson Mandela Freedom March.

Richard Caborn was the Labour MP for Sheffield Central, 1983–2010, and Minister for Sport, 2001–2007. He joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement when he was a trade union official in the 1970s and was a founder member of Sheffield Anti-Apartheid Group. He served as the Anti-Apartheid Movement’s national Treasurer, 1989–1994. In 1984 he became Secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Southern Africa.

Vijay Krishnarayan became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1984 while studying town and country planning at Oxford Polytechnic. As student union president, he was elected to the National Council of the student section of the Labour Party and in 1988 took part in the Mandela Freedom March from Glasgow to London. In 1989, he campaigned against the rebel cricket tour to South Africa before moving on to a career in civil society organisations, promoting people-to-people solidarity.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom history project in 2013.