Browse the AAM Archive

COSATU General Secretary Jay Naidoo was the main speaker at the AAM’s annual general meeting in November 1989. He warned that since F W de Klerk was inaugurated as State President in September 1989, there had been an increase in violence and repression against South African trade unionists.

Poster produced for the Anti-Apartheid Movement’s campaign for sanctions against South Africa.

At the end of 1989 over 70 political prisoners were still being held on death row in South Africa. Many others had had their sentences commuted after international campaigns to save their lives. This leaflet publicised a rally on South African Political Prisoners Day, 11 October 1989.

Operation Orange was an AAM fundraising initiative designed to promote the consumer boycott campaign. This leaflet asked people to send a message to Prime Minister Thatcher asking her to impose sanctions against South Africa. At the same time it asked them to send a donation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

This Festival brought together speakers from the Namibia Support Committee and Wales AAM with the Cuban ambassador, who spoke about his country’s support for Angola against South African aggression. The conference was followed by an evening concert with music from the Cardiff Red Choir and singer songwriter Maria Tolly.

The AAM’s ‘Boycott Apartheid 89’ campaign extended the consumer boycott to tourism. London students and the London Anti-Apartheid Committee called for South Africa to be excluded from the World Travel Market at Kensington’s Olympia exhibition centre, 28 November 1989. The AAM wrote to the ten top British travel agents asking them not to book holidays in South Africa.

This booklet was produced by the London Borough of Lambeth in south London. It gave advice to Lambeth residents on how to check if goods on sale in local shops came from South Africa or Namibia. It was carefully worded so as not to break new laws restricting the powers of local authorities to support consumer boycott campaigns.

The AAM depended on membership subscriptions and fundraising events to pay for its campaigns. It received no government grants and no significant funding from grant-giving organisations. It depended on grassroots supporters to raise money with initiatives like this annual Grand Raffle. In the photograph is actor and Labour MP Glenda Jackson.