Photos

Brent AA Group supporters with their local MP Ken Livingstone asked shoppers to boycott South African goods sold by Tesco in February 1987 on the eve of the AAM’s March Month of Action for People’s Sanctions.

On 1 March 1987 the AAM launched a boycott of Shell as part of an international campaign. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries and a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. During the March Month of People’s Sanctions activists picketed Shell garages all over Britain. The photo shows Frances Morrell, Leader of the ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) with David Haslam from Embargo outside a Shell garage in north London with a mock gun symbolising Shell’s support for the South African Defence Force. Embargo was a co-ordinating group campaigning against oil supplies to South Africa.

On 1 March 1987 the AAM launched a boycott of Shell as part of an international campaign organised with groups in the USA and the Netherlands. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. During the March Month of People’s Sanctions activists picketed Shell garages all over Britain. The photograph shows members of the local Liberal Party picketing a Shell garage in Hackney, north London.

On 1 March 1987 the AAM launched a boycott of Shell as part of an international campaign organised with groups in the USA and the Netherlands. Shell was joint owner of one of South Africa’s biggest oil refineries. It was a lead company in South Africa’s coalmining and petrochemicals industries. During the March Month of People’s Sanctions activists picketed Shell garages all over Britain. The photograph shows anti-apartheid supporters picketing a Shell garage in Bristol on 28 March 1987

Anti-apartheid demonstrators marched through Birmingham on 21 March 1987 in support of the AAM’s March Month of Action for People’s Sanctions. They were remembering the South Africans shot by the police at Sharpeville in 1960 and at Langa in the Eastern Cape in 1985.

British railworkers union General Secretary Jimmy Knapp with Zola Zembe from SACTU. They joined a protest outside the South African Embassy on 6 April 1987.

Controversy surrounded singer Paul Simon’s 1986 visit to South Africa to record the ‘Graceland’ album. The AAM argued that the visit broke the cultural boycott of South Africa. The UN Special Committee against Apartheid put Paul Simon on its register of artists who had performed in South Africa. This picture shows anti-apartheid supporters outside a concert given by Paul Simon at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 April 1987.

Jews Against Apartheid was formed in August 1986 and played an important part in the AAM’s Multi-Faith Committee. Over 150 Jews met outside South Africa House on 16 April 1987 to conduct a Seder for Freedom in Southern Africa. In the picture are Rabbis Alexandra Wright, Colin Eimer and Daniel Smith and writer Bernard Kops.