Posters

Poster advertising an AAM rally calling for sanctions against South Africa on 16 June 1985. The uprising in the townships of the southern Transvaal from September 1984 triggered a new wave of repression. On 21 March 1985 40 people were shot by the South African police at Langa in the Eastern Cape. Two days before, South African forces killed 16 people in Gaborone, Botswana. Thousands of demonstrators marched through central London to protest against the killings. They called at the headquarters of Shell, Barclays Bank and the Ministry of Defence to demand that British companies and the Conservative government end their links with South Africa.

Anti-apartheid supporters in the multi-racial district of St Paul’s, Bristol campaigned to turn the area into an apartheid-free zone in the mid-1980s. Most of the area’s independent shops and businesses signed a declaration pledging themselves to boycott South African goods. The local branch of Tesco stopped stocking South African products.

Poster publicising a student demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 19 October 1985. Hundreds of students staged a sit-down protest in front of the South African Embassy as part of a national week of student anti-apartheid action. More than 300 colleges all over the country took part in the week. Several Barclays branches were occupied by demonstrators and the NUS renamed its north London headquarters Nelson Mandela House.

Poster publicising a demonstration for sanctions, 2 November 1985. 150,000 people marched from assembly points in east, west and south London to Trafalgar Square to hear ANC President Oliver Tambo, SWAPO leader Shapua Kaukungua and US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson call for sanctions against South Africa.

In 1985 the British Defence and Aid Fund launched the Mandela Poetry Project to mark Human Rights Day, 10 December. It asked school students to contribute poems about Nelson Mandela and other Southern African political prisoners. This poster reproduces some of the 200 poems that were written as part of the project.

Poster produced for the campaign for a boycott of South African goods. The text reads: ‘Fruit is mostly picked by black women and children in South Africa and Namibia. 60% of canned fruit and vegetables exported by South Africa is consumed by Britain and the EEC. Watch out for fresh fruit sold under the label of CAPE and OUTSPAN.’

Poster produced for the campaign calling for a boycott of South African goods.

Poster asking shoppers in Sheffield to boycott South African goods.