1980s

South African Youth Congress representatives Joe Nkuna and Faye Reagon launched a campaign to save the lives of 32 people sentenced to death in South Africa for their anti-apartheid activities. They planned to present over 32,000 signatures – 1,000 for each prisoner – to the British, West German and US embassies in South Africa to internationalise the campaign. In London 43 MPs signed an early day motion backing the initiative. Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) and the AAM organised a meeting chaired by Betty Heathfield of Women Against Pit Closures.

This poster advertised an international conference held in Harare, Zimbabwe on September 1987 about ‘Children, Repression and the Law in Apartheid South Africa’. The conference brought together representatives of international anti-apartheid movements and activists from within South Africa. They heard testimony from children who had been detained by the South African security forces. The British delegates later formed the Harare Working Group, which organised a conference at City University, London, attended by 700 people. Participants formed groups such as Teachers against Apartheid, Social Workers against Apartheid and Youth & Community Workers against Apartheid.

In September 1987 a conference in Harare heard testimony from children who had been tortured by the South African security forces. Over 200 health workers, lawyers, social workers and representatives of student, trade union, religious and women’s organisations from 45 countries met children living in South Africa and the frontline states. This pamphlet told some of the children’s stories and appealed for support for the Trevor Huddleston Children’s Fund.

This conference was part of a campaign launched by the AAM and the British National Union of Mineworkers to stop imports of South African coal into Britain. It was attended by over 500 delegates, including 120 from branches of the NUM. South African miners leader Cyril Ramaphosa was prevented from attending by the South African government. In September 1986 West Germany, Portugal and the UK blocked a European Economic Community proposal to ban South African coal. In the late 1980s coal was South Africa’s second biggest export earner.

In September 1987 a conference in Harare heard testimony from children who had been tortured by the South African security forces. Over 200 health workers, lawyers, social workers and representatives of student, trade union, religious and women’s organisations from 45 countries met children from within South Africa and exiles living in the frontline states. The conference was organised by Bishop Ambrose Reeves Trust (BART). In the photograph Glenys Kinnock listens to one of the witnesses.

Leaflet advertising the AAM’s fringe meeting at the 1987 Labour Party national conference. The leaflet also publicised a demonstration for sanctions on 24 October.

Glenys Kinnock and Larry Whitty of the British Labour Party handed over a cheque for the ANC’s Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania at the Labour Party conference in 1987.

There was widespread support among British trade unionists for striking miners in South Africa and Namibia in September 1987. AAM supporters and the British NUM held daily protests outside the London headquarters of Anglo-American, Consolidated Goldfields and other South African mining conglomerates. Over £75,000 was raised for the miners. In the picture Labour MPs Tony Banks and Jeremy Corbyn hold leaflets that the police stopped them distributing outside the offices of the Anglo-American Corporation.