Photos

All over Britain anti-apartheid supporters celebrated Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday and called for his release. In Bristol a banner was hung from a housing block facing the Anglican cathedral. At the conclusion of the AAM’s ‘Nelson Mandela: Freedom at 70’ campaign, a poll showed that Nelson Mandela had become a household name in Britain and 70% of people  supported the call for his release.

Nelson Mandela was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Islwyn in South Wales to mark his 70th birthday in 1988. In the photograph Neil Kinnock MP presents a scroll to Mandela’s lawyer Ismail Ayob with Beyers Naude and Imam Esack looking on. The presentation was one of hundreds of honours conferred on Mandela by British local authorities and other institutions in the 1980s.

Cutting a birthday cake for Nelson Mandela at the Mangrove, All Saints Road in west London.

Jonas Savimbi, leader of the South African-backed Unita organisation in Angola, was met with widespread protests when he visited London in July 1988. An advertisement was placed in the Independent newspaper and demonstrators picketed the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which hosted a meeting for Savimbi. The British Foreign Office gave assurances that Savimbi would not be officially received.

The platform at the AAM’s 1988 annual general meeting, held in Sheffield. The banner reproduces a woodcut by Namibian woodcut artist John Muafangejo.

Actor Leonard Fenton, a stars of the TV soap EastEnders, presented the first prize of a holiday in China in the AAM’s 1988 Prize Raffle. Fundraising was an important part of the AAM’s activities. It depended entirely on small donations and fundraising projects and received no grants from government or major donor institutions.

Still from a film advertisement promoting the boycott of South African goods, made by the TUC. The ad was shown in cinemas throughout Britain. It won the Gold Lion Award at the 34th Cannes International Advertising film Festival.