Local AA groups

Hounslow AA Group was formed at the end of 1985. Its 1987 AGM report highlighted the AAM’s 24 March day of protest action and reported on the local council’s funding for an anti-apartheid campaign event as part of the national ‘ten days of anti-apartheid action’ planned to take place in June 1987.

Marks and Spencer became the focus of the South Africa boycott campaign in Greater Manchester after it refused to discuss its purchasing policy. In 1987 local anti-apartheid campaigners collected 10,000 signatures to a petition asking it not to sell South African products. The petition was presented to the store by the Bishop of Manchester. M&S also had links with the South African company Wooltru, which stocked M&S merchandise.

Supporters of Birmingham AA Youth Committee took their banner on Birmingham’s May Day demonstration on 1 May 1987. They were joined by British miners leader Arthur Scargill (centre). In June the group launched a campaign to make the Handsworth district of Birmingham an apartheid-free zone.

The Peterborough Against Apartheid festival held in May 1987 featured British folk punk group ‘The Men they Couldn’t Hang’ and singer songwriter Rory McCloud, as well as stalls and speakers from the ANC and SWAPO. Over 1,000 people attended the festival, one of the most successful events ever held in the city. 

Poster for a folk concert to raise funds for the ANC and Nottingham Anti-Apartheid at Nottingham’s Trent Polytechnic Students Union in 1987.

This leaflet advertised a picket of Shell’s London headquarters on 13 May 1987, the eve of the company’s annual general meeting. Over hundred people, including Labour MPs, joined the demonstration, organised by the London Anti-Apartheid Committee. The following day protesters asked questions about Shell’s operations in Southern Africa at the AGM, forcing the directors to abandon the meeting. The action took place during an international week of action on Shell, 11–17 May, when the AAM’s London Committee organised demonstrations outside over 100 Shell garages.

Sheffield AAM picketed a Shell garage as part of an international week of action to force Shell to pull out of South Africa, 11–17 May 1987. All over Britain local anti-apartheid groups picketed Shell garages asking motorists to boycott Shell. The AAM launched its ‘Boycott Shell’ campaign on 1 March. 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.

The leader of Southwark Council in south London, Anne Matthews, joined a picket of a local Shell garage in May 1987. The picket was part of an international week of action, 11–17 May, when the AAM’s London Committee organised demonstrations outside over 100 Shell garages in London. 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. The AAM launched its ‘Boycott Shell’ campaign on 1 March 1987.