On Wednesday 26th November 1969, 7,000 demonstrators marched from All Saints Park to the White City Stadium in Old Trafford to protest against the South African apartheid regime and, in particular, the all-white Springboks rugby union team which was playing a North West Counties team.
The Manchester match saw the largest turnout of marchers in Britain, the largest police mobilisation and the largest number of arrests. There were 2,000 police protecting the match and 150 arrests, with 77 people charged. Subsequently there were forty formal complaints about police conduct, and an official investigation into the complaints.
Fifty years on, on Thursday 3rd October at 2pm, as part of the Working Class Movement Library's 'Not just Peterloo' events, the Library is bringing together a dozen people who were on that demonstration.
At the time they were students, lecturers, unemployed, probation service staff and library workers. They include people active in the underground press (Mike Don) and Manchester Anti-Apartheid (Janet Murphy), rugby player Peter Winterbottom and Bonnie Muirhead, postgraduate student who will be skyping in from Chicago.
The workshop will be inclusive, encouraging everyone to take part. It will be recorded and – thanks to funding from the Society for the Study of Labour History - a transcript made available to researchers in the WCML and published in an edited version with historical commentary in the journal Socialist History.
The Manchester anti-Springboks Protest of 1969
Thursday 3rd October 2pm
Working Class Movement Library
Admission free. All welcome. Light refreshments available.
For more information see the WCML website – click here
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