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Leaflet advertising a benefit concert for SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions) in 1987. The concert featured jazz and blues saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and his Electric Dream ensemble, and Julian Bahula.

Mug marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress in 1987.

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.

Nottingham AA Group converted a local bus to publicise the campaign for a boycott of South African goods and of Shell. 

An international campaign to force Shell to withdraw from South Africa was launched in 1987 by anti-apartheid organisations in the Netherlands, USA and Britain. In Britain the AAM called for a boycott of all Shell products and all over the country local AA groups picketed Shell garages. Shell lost major contracts with local authorities and its AGM on 11 May 1988 was disrupted by anti-apartheid activists. As a result of the campaign, Shell’s share of the UK petrol market fell by nearly 7 per cent.

This conference for trade unionists was one of many regional initiatives in the mid and late 1980s. It brought together local trade unionists and anti-apartheid activists. The conference focused on campaigning for sanctions and the role of the ANC in South Africa and SWAPO in Namibia.

Report of the third biennial conference of Local Authority Action Against Apartheid (LAAA), held in Glasgow in February 1987. LAAA was set up at a conference held in Sheffield in 1983.

In 1987 the AAM called for ‘people’s sanctions’ in response to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s determination to oppose all sanctions measures against South Africa. In March 1987 it organised a month of local action when local AA groups targeted British companies with a big stake in the South African economy, like Standard Chartered Bank and RTZ. The highlight of the month was the launch of the Boycott Shell campaign on 1 March. This poster was used by local AA groups to advertise events in their own localities.