Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.48.8
Object Name
postcard
Title
1. 'Free all South African and Namibia prisoners'. 2. 'Support apartheid's prisoners'. 3. 'Freedom'. 4. 'No apartheid executions'. 5. Mandela. 6. 'The whites and the Blacks in South Africa have got to live together. That was the greatest thing I received
in the African National Congress. Marcus Motaung.'
Place
UK, South Africa, Namibia
People
Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela, Marcus Motaung, Ken Sprague
Events
Apartheid Regime (South Africa)
Description
A set of twelve postcards in a blue paper envelope. The postcards are black and white, and each design is repeated twice.
Designs: 1. 'Free all South African and Namibian prisoners' - caption on an image of broken prison bars, the sun shining through the prison window. 2. 'Support apartheid's prisoners' - a raised fist extends from inside prison walls. 3. 'Freedom' - this word is written on the hand of Nelson Mandela who is reaching out from behind prison bars. 4. 'No apartheid executions' - this is written beside a noose being cut with a pair of scissors. 5. A portrait of a young Nelson Mandela raising his fist in triumph. 6. A group of people behind prison bars captioned with a quote from Marcus Motaung 'The whites and the Blacks in South Africa have got to live together. That was the greatest thing I received in the African National Congress. Marcus Motaung.'
These postcards were designed by British artist Ken Sprague for the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The AAM was a British organisation involved in the international movement to oppose the South African apartheid system which was introduced in 1948. Under apartheid only white people could rule, and a strict system of segregation privileged white South Africans and kept Black South Africans as second class citizens who were kept poor and with limited access to social resources and employment opportunities, as well as banning interracial marriages.
AAM began in 1959 following an appeal by Black South African organisers for international consumer boycotts of goods grown in apartheid South Africa to try and pressure the South African government with economic consequences for apartheid. They also co-ordinated the Free Nelson Mandela Campaign with the exiled leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) South African political party. Mandela was freed in 1990, and apartheid ended in 1994 which led to multi-racial general elections that left Mandela as the new president of South Africa.
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