Faith organisations

Prospectus for a day conference on the role of the church in South Africa and the response of the British churches, held at Elvet Methodist Church, Durham in April 1977. The speakers were Methodist minister Rev Cedric Mayson and Baptist Rev John Lamula. Issues for discussion included ‘Violence and the Christian Response' and the role of sanctions. The conference was organised by Durham AA Group.

This report provided a comprehensive analysis of the involvement of British banks in South Africa in the 1970s. It concluded that the banks’ operations did more to sustain apartheid than to erode it. It recommended that British banks should terminate export credits and halt loans to South Africa, and called for a debate on the issue within the British churches. Christian Concern for Southern Africa (CCSA) was set up in 1972 to research and publicise the role played by British companies in South Africa. Its reports were widely distributed by the AAM.

South Africa’s armed forces depended on imported oil to fight against SWAPO guerrillas in Namibia and Angola and to mount armed raids in Lesotho and Mozambique. This pamphlet exposed Shell’s role as a major supplier of oil to South Africa’s police and military. It argued that in the face of increasing guerrilla attacks against oil installations in South Africa, Shell’s investment there could turn into a liability. The pamphlet was produced by the WCC’s Programme to Combat Racism, Christian Concern for Southern Africa (CCSA), KAIROS and the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR).

This leaflet set out the policies of the various Christian denominations in Britain towards investment in South Africa. It asked church people to press for progressive disengagement. The leaflet was produced by the British Council of Churches and Christian Concern for Southern Africa (CCSA), a group that worked closely with the AAM.

This Declaration was made by an Inter-Faith Colloquium on Apartheid organised by the AAM’s President, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, in March 1984. The Colloquium led to the setting up of the AAM’s Multi-Faith Committee, which held its first meeting at the Central Gurdwara in London at the beginning of 1985. 

Leaflet advertising an interdenominational meeting in Bristol Cathedral on the immorality of apartheid. The speaker was the AAM’s President Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and the meeting was sponsored by the Anglican, Catholic, Baptist and Methodist churches.

Members of the AAM’s Multi-Faith Committee held daily silent lunch hour vigils outside the South African Embassy in the week before Easter. The committee was formed in 1985 to bring together people of different faiths in opposition to apartheid.

Poster publicising a parliamentary lobby on 17 June 1986 calling on the British government to impose sanctions against South Africa. More than 3,500 people lobbied their MPs askin them to press for a change of policy. The lobby was initiated by the AAM, with support from the TUC, British Council of Churches and the United Nations Association. The summer of 1986 was the high point of the international campaign for sanctions against South Africa.