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From August 1985 the Scottish AA Committee held a weekly Friday picket of the South African consulate in Glasgow. The consulate was on the fifth floor of the Glasgow Stock Exchange. In 1986 the street was renamed Nelson Mandela Place, and the consulate set up a post office box number to avoid using the new address. The consulate was shut down in the early 1990s.

South Devon AA Group mounted an exhibition about the lives of women and children under apartheid in the high street in Totnes, Devon in 1989.

William Ntombela was one of several South African trade unionists sentenced to death in 1989. The British shopworkers union USDAW launched a petition for his release, signed by 5,000 members.  In the photograph USDAW General Secretary Garfield Davies (left) displays the petition. Partly as a result of the campaign the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Actor Glenda Jackson launched the AAM Prize Raffle in 1989, with first prize of a Citroen car. Fundraising was an important part of the AAM’s activities – it depended entirely on small donations and fundraising projects and received no grants from government or major donor institutions.

Troops in armoured personnel carriers terrorised young people living in South Africa’s black townships in the mid-1980s. This T-shirt was produced by Artists Against Apartheid, set up by Jerry Dammers and Dali Tambo in 1986.

By the 1980s South Africa was heavily dependent on loans from US and British banks. After the apartheid government declared a moratorium on the repayment of its foreign loans in 1985, the AAM and End Loans to Southern Africa (ELTSA) stepped up their campaign to stop the banks rescheduling South Africa’s debt.

This poster was one of a set of four published in January 1990 for the launch of the AAM’s ‘South Africa Freedom Now!’ campaign. The decision to launch the campaign was taken against the background of changes in South Africa and the build-up to the release of Nelson Mandela. The poster highlighted the need for an end to all repression in South Africa before meaningful negotiations could take place.

This poster was one of a set of four published in January 1990 for the launch of the AAM’s ‘South Africa Freedom Now!’. The decision to launch the campaign was taken against the background of changes in South Africa and the build-up to the release of Nelson Mandela. The poster highlighted the need to maintain sanctions until an agreement had been reached on a transition to democracy.