Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.26.8
Object Name
poster
Title
'South Africa. Your choice in black and white. If you emigrate to South Africa you will be taking a black worker's job. Your family will be moving into a repressive, dangerous society. White immigrants may be conscripted for active military service. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions'
Place
South Africa, UK
People
Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Events
South African apartheid regime 1948-1994
Description
A white poster with black text which reads: 'South Africa. Your choice in black and white. If you emigrate to South Africa you will be taking a black worker's job. Your family will be moving into a repressive, dangerous society. White immigrants may be conscripted for active military service. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions'. The central image is a sepia coloured photo of two Black men in suits being prevented from moving by a group of white soldiers in fatigues. The soldier in the foreground is assaulting one of the Black men with his truncheon.
This poster was designed by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to urge workers not to migrate to South Africa during the apartheid regime. Apartheid is a system of institutionalised racial segregation that ensured that the country was dominated politically, socially and economically by the minority white population. South Africa was a former British colony where white, English speaking migrants were welcomed. The poster urges solidarity between British workers and Black South Africans who would be further displaced by white migrant workers. This was true in both employment and housing, as the apartheid government forcibly cleared Black neighbourhoods in urban areas as a way to enforce segregation. Whites only housing was often built over demolished Black neighbourhoods. Black residents were not paid fairly for the land they owned or the homes the government took from them, and were then forcibly relocated to Black only 'townships' far from city centres, places of employment and resources like medical facilities and shops. Forcible relocation of a specific identity group by another is recognised as an element of ethnic cleansing, and is considered a crime against humanity by the UN.
The anti-apartheid movement grew into the biggest British pressure group on an international issue. The AAM operated until 1994, when South Africa held their first democratic elections.
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