Browse the AAM Archive

Doncaster AA Group planned a full calendar of activities, September–December 1987. It included collecting funds for striking miners in South Africa, demonstrations and a conference opposing the import of South African coal, and a picket of Tesco. The group hired a coach to take supporters to the AAM national demonstration in London on 24 October and organised stalls at Doncaster’s African-Caribbean Gala in August and Doncaster Women’s Centre at the TUC Women’s Day of Action in October.

Leaflet advertising a rally and march calling for a ban on South African coal imports, organised jointly with the Hatfield branch of the National Union of Mineworkers. It was planned to march along the local wharfs where coal imports were unloaded. The march was followed by a social event at a local miners welfare centre. Anti-Apartheid supporters in the Yorkshire and Northumberland coal fields worked closely with the NUM during and after the 1984–85 British miners strike.

Poster advertising a festival held at Finsbury Park, London to celebrate South Africa Women’s Day. The main speakers were American black activist Angela Davis and ANC Western Europe representative Ruth Mompati.

There was widespread support among British trade unionists for striking miners in South Africa and Namibia in September 1987. AAM supporters and the British NUM held daily protests outside the London headquarters of Anglo-American, Consolidated Goldfields and other South African mining conglomerates. Over £75,000 was raised for the miners.

This poster advertised an international conference held in Harare, Zimbabwe on September 1987 about ‘Children, Repression and the Law in Apartheid South Africa’. The conference brought together representatives of international anti-apartheid movements and activists from within South Africa. They heard testimony from children who had been detained by the South African security forces. The British delegates later formed the Harare Working Group, which organised a conference at City University, London, attended by 700 people. Participants formed groups such as Teachers against Apartheid, Social Workers against Apartheid and Youth & Community Workers against Apartheid.

In September 1987 a conference in Harare heard testimony from children who had been tortured by the South African security forces. Over 200 health workers, lawyers, social workers and representatives of student, trade union, religious and women’s organisations from 45 countries met children living in South Africa and the frontline states. This pamphlet told some of the children’s stories and appealed for support for the Trevor Huddleston Children’s Fund.

South African coal exports to Western Europe rose steeply in the mid-1980s. In 1986 West Germany opposed the inclusion of coal in a sanctions package imposed by the European Economic Community. The British National Union of Mineworkers was at the forefront of the campaign to stop UK imports of South African coal. In 1987 it held a joint conference with the AAM and produced a special Coal Campaign Bulletin.

Memorandum drawing attention to the steep rise in death sentences for political offences in South Africa. The memorandum made detailed proposals for intervention by the British government and asked it to initiate action by the UN Security Council, the European Economic Community and the Commonwealth.