Pamphlets

‘Racism in Sport’ tells the story of the campaign to exclude apartheid sports teams from international sport from 1946, when black weightlifters protested to the British Empire Games Weightlifting Federation, to the eve of the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok cricket tour. Its author, Chris de Broglio, was the co-founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). It was one of many pamphlets published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Part autobiography and part a devastating indictment of apartheid, this booklet by Joyce Sikakane gives a vivid account of life in Soweto, South Africa’s largest township. The author fled South Africa in 1973 after standing trial with Winnie Mandela. The book was published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

South Africa’s English language press played an ambivalent role under apartheid, with most media rooted in the white community and only exceptional newspapers, like the Rand Daily Mail, speaking out against apartheid. Even so, the National Party government enacted a barrage of legislation to ensure that journalists did not step out of line. This pamphlet examines apartheid press censorship. It was one of many published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Education under apartheid was totally segregated by race, with schools for black students hugely inferior to those for whites. Under the misnamed ‘Extension of Universities’ Act universities were also segregated. Published just after the 1976 school students uprising, this pamphlet exposes how the apartheid education system was designed to confine black students to the ranks of unskilled labourers. It was published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Women played a big role in the liberation struggles in Namibia and Zimbabwe, as well as in South Africa. This pamphlet tells the stories of Southern African women who were imprisoned and banned because they fought back against apartheid and racism. It was published by the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and distributed by the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Under apartheid black workers were exploited to provide high living standards for the white minority. This pamphlet describes the web of legislation which controlled where Africans could work and imposed a rigid ‘colour bar’ confining them to unskilled jobs and poverty wages. It shows how in the 1970s African workers fought back against restrictions on their right to organise and, against all the odds, began to build an independent trade union movement.  

Gold was apartheid South Africa’s biggest export earner. This pamphlet was published as part of an international campaign to persuade governments to freeze the import of apartheid gold. It called for a boycott of Krugerrands and for support for the frontline states in stopping the recruitment of cheap labour for the South African mines.

South Africa repeatedly raided neighbouring states to abduct or murder political exiles. This pamphlet documented incursions going back to the early 1960s. It showed how the South African security forces had violated the borders of seven independent states. The pamphlet called on the international community to take action against South Africa for violating international law.