Boycott

David Granville joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement in London in the early 1980s and later moved to Sheffield, where he was active in Sheffield AA Group. He was the Co-ordinator of Sheffield Southern Africa Resource Centre, set up in 1988 to provide educational resources on Southern Africa to schools and community organisations. 

In this clip David Granville explains how most British institutions and companies had links with apartheid South Africa and how the AAM selected key supermarkets and banks on which to campaign. 

David Hillman became an Anti-Apartheid Movement activist in 1985, joining Hammersmith and Fulham AA Group. He was a member of the London Anti-Apartheid Committee and the AAM Boycott Committee, where he led activities on the Boycott Shell campaign across London. After 1994, he served for over 10 years as a member of the National Executive Committee of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA).

In this clip David Hillman describes how he pretended to be a journalist to infiltrate South Africa House during a tourist industry convention.

 

Gerard Omasta-Milsom joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement as a student at Bristol University, where he was an activist in Bristol University AA Group. In 1988 he joined the staff of the Anti-Apartheid Movement as Field Officer, responsible for coordinating the activities of local anti-apartheid groups. He became the AAM’s Campaigns Officer, remaining in post through the period when the AAM dissolved itself and set up a successor organisation, Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) in 1994–95.

In this clip Gerard describes the outreach work carried out in the 1980s and 90s with the AAM’s 1989 Boycott Bandwagon, converted the following year into the Freedom Bus.

 

Simon Korner was Secretary and then Chair of Hackney AA Group from about 1986 to 1994. The group organised a weekly stall outside Sainsbury’s in Dalston and a regular picket of the local Shell garage in Clapton. It put on major fundraising shows at the Hackney Empire, featuring artists like Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard and the Pogues. Simon was a member of the London Anti-Apartheid Committee, and organised political dayschools and a mass picket of Shell HQ.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the ‘Forward to Freedom’ AAM history project in 2013.

 

Talal Karim came to Britain from Bangladesh in 1971 and supported anti-apartheid campaigns as a student at Warwick University. He later became a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Islington and a member of its Race Equality Committee. He represented Islington Council on Local Authorities Against Apartheid (LAAA) and was one of the main movers behind the Council’s Declaration on Southern Africa, and support for the African National Congress (ANC) and South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO).

In this clip Talal Karim remembers how he checked that there were no South African products on sale in the Council’s staff canteen.

Christabel Gurney was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement from 1969 to 1994. She joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the late 1960s and took part in demonstrations against the Springbok rugby and cricket tours in 1969-70. She was Secretary of the Dambusters Mobilising Committee, which gave rise to the campaign to persuade Barclays Bank to pull out of South Africa.  She edited the AAM’s monthly newspaper Anti-Apartheid News in the 1970s and was later secretary of Notting Hill Anti-Apartheid Group. More recently she has researched and written about the history of the AAM. 

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the ‘Forward to Freedom’ AAM history project in 2013.

Bob Hughes MP was the Chair of the Anti-Apartheid Movement from 1976 to 1995. He was the Labour MP for Aberdeen North from 1970 to 1997 and served as Under Secretary of State for Scotland in 1974–75. He now sits in the House of Lords as Baron Hughes of Woodside.

In this clip Lord Hughes describes the arguments over boycotting South African products.