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This concert, held in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank, was one of many events held to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 65th birthday on 18 July 1983. It raised funds for the 1983 Free Nelson Mandela Campaign, which brought together trade unions, the Church of England’s Board of Social Responsibility, and black and ethnic minority organisations.

Nelson Mandela’s 65th birthday was celebrated at a meeting in London attended by his daughter Zenani. Among the speakers were Mary Benson and AAM President Trevor Huddleston, who had both known Mandela before he went to prison. Hugh Masekela and the ANC choir performed at the celebration. Mandela’s birthday was marked by events all over Britain. The London Borough of Greenwich awarded him the freedom of the borough and public gardens were named after him in Leeds and Hull.

The 1980s Conservative government was strongly opposed to sanctions against South Africa, arguing instead for ‘internal reform’. This letter from Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, followed up a meeting with a delegation from the AAM which focused on Namibia, sanctions and South African involvement in the building of an airfield in the Falkland Islands in the aftermath of the Falklands war.

Leaflet publicising a briefing meeting for an international campaign on the theme ‘Stop the Apartheid War’ planned for the autumn of 1983. The campaign followed an international conference on solidarity with Mozambique and Angola held in Lisbon on 25–27 March. The campaign was organised by the AAM, Namibia Support Committee and the newly formed Mozambique Angola Committee (MAC).

The AAM followed up its 1982 ‘Southern Africa: The Time to Choose’ conference with a campaign on the theme ‘Southern Africa: The Time to Act’ the following year. This leaflet advertised a conference on how to organise local anti-apartheid campaigns. The conference provided a political analysis of the situation in Southern Africa and workshops for activists from local anti-apartheid and student groups. Speakers included representatives of the ANC and SWAPO, Abdul Minty from the AAM and Paul Blomfield, Chair of the AAM’s Student Committee and Secretary of Sheffield AA Group.

Students from University College London built a hut from scrap materials on the steps of St Martin’s in the Fields to show passers-by how black South Africans lived in shanty towns like Crossroads, October 1983.

Leaflet asking AAM supporters to protest outside the South African Embassy on the opening day of the trial of Albertina Sisulu in 1983.

Barclays Bank was the biggest bank in South Africa and Namibia. This leaflet set out the many ways in which it supported the apartheid government. Anti-apartheid supporters campaigned for Barclays to withdraw from South Africa and Namibia from 1970 until the bank pulled out in 1986.