Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning at Penton Street

03/09/2026

🎥 Boycott, information and the power of solidarity

This summer, Eve, a Master's student in Global Heritage Management at Heritage, Museums & Galleries Studies at Newcastle University UK joined the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre on placement, where she focused on researching anti-apartheid activism across Newcastle and Tyneside and bringing its lessons to new audiences.

In this second short film, Eve draws on the memories of Sharon Morgan, who was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, alongside archive material and music to explore how people in Britain connected with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

Sharon recalls the importance of Anti-Apartheid News in providing information about what was happening in South Africa, and how boycotting South African produce offered an immediate, practical way to take action – while also opening up conversations and spreading awareness about apartheid.

The consumer boycott became one of the Anti-Apartheid Movement's longest-running and most widely accessible campaigns. It meant that solidarity could be expressed through an everyday decision: what not to buy.

Eve's film captures something of how information, individual action and collective campaigning came together – and how people acting far beyond South Africa's borders became part of a much wider movement against injustice. It’s a reminder, too, that the choices we make about what we buy can have an impact – and that having that choice shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Thank you to Eve for creating the film, and to Sharon for sharing her memories with us.

Research & image credits for 🎞️ AAM Archives & The Chronicle Live, 🎶 by Tyneside Anti-Apartheid Choir

28/08/2026

We are deeply saddened by the death of our friend Paddy Donnelly earlier this month.

Paddy was a photographer and photo editor, archivist, educator, musician and highly regarded film critic. His commitment to social justice took him from documenting resistance to apartheid in South Africa to London, where he worked at the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) and the Catholic Overseas Development Agency. He later returned to South Africa and spent many years at Rhodes JMS, where he shared his extraordinary knowledge, curiosity and enthusiasm with generations of students.

We had the great pleasure of getting to know Paddy through the development of the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre. He was tremendous fun: warm, energetic, endlessly curious and generous with his knowledge, with a wonderfully direct – and usually completely on-the-money – observation always at the ready. Time spent with Paddy invariably left you knowing more, thinking about something differently, and smiling.

Paddy generously donated photographs from his years of photographing anti-apartheid activity to the Centre, together with books, documents, prints and other material from his collection. We are enormously grateful that he took the time to share these with us, and proud that his materials and the stories they hold will become part of the Centre.

Our love and condolences go especially to Paddy’s wife Liz, and to his family, many friends, colleagues and former students in South Africa, the UK and around the world. He will be very greatly missed.

📷's in carousel order.
1. Paddy Donnelly, from the programme for his memorial at Rhodes University Chapel, Makhanda, 28 August 2026.
2. Paddy at Thin Ice Press, York, for our exhibition of the work of his longtime friend and former IDAF colleague Norman Kaplan, March 2026.
3. Nelson Mandela Concert, Wembley Stadium, 1988, photographed by Paddy.
4. Paddy annotating photographs from his collection donated to the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre, 2026.
5. Nelson Mandela, photographed and image colourised by Paddy Donnelly.
6. Paddy Donnelly in younger days, from the programme for his memorial, photo from his private collection.

20/08/2026

🌿 Resilient Roots finds a permanent home at Chelsea Physic Garden

What began with conversations, memories and shared knowledge has now taken permanent root. Four new Community Star Labels developed through Resilient Roots have been installed amongst the Southern African planting at Chelsea Physic Garden.

Resilient Roots brought together South African elders and community members from the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre with MA Visual Communication, London Metropolitan Univercity students. Working with Chelsea Physic Garden’s Southern African plant collection, they explored indigenous knowledge and uses of the plants, and their connections to land, culture, healing, food, memory and identity.

Three permanent panels now share reflections from Mam' Lindiwe, Tanya and Vusi, alongside an introduction from the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre - foregrounding South African voices and lived knowledge within the Garden.

Writing about Galtonia candicans, Vusi Mathebula describes it as a “living symbol of indigenous knowledge, reminding us that nature, spirit, and land are one. Through it, we remember who we are and where we come from.”

Tanya reflects on gardens as spaces of care and quiet resistance, remembering the agapanthus in her grandfather’s Barberton garden, grown “just for the joy they bring.” Growing them in London connects her to family, home and “the blue of the African sky.”

It is especially poignant to see the words of our late elder Lindiwe held permanently here. She chose Tulbaghia, a plant whose healing properties carried for her memory, medicine and heritage. A committed activist and compassionate advocate, her panel is a lasting marker of her wisdom, care for others and belief in intergenerational learning.

Our huge thanks to Mam' Lindiwe, Tanya and Vusi for sharing their knowledge and memories so generously, and to Chelsea Physic Garden and London Metropolitan University for a collaboration that continues to grow.

A lasting legacy of Resilient Roots - enriching how these plants are encountered and understood through the cultural knowledge, memories and meanings they carry.

13/08/2026

🎥 New student placement spotlight

This summer, Eve Robson, a Master's student in Global Heritage Management at Heritage, Museums & Galleries Studies at Newcastle University UK, joined the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre on placement, where she focused on researching anti-apartheid activism across Newcastle and Tyneside and bringing its lessons to new audiences.

Alongside her research, Eve created this short film exploring the power of international solidarity and collective action. Looking back at the global movement to boycott apartheid South Africa, it reminds us that people, communities and grassroots movements can influence change far beyond their own borders.

Reflecting on the project, Eve said:

"I wanted to work on educational social media content, and I care deeply about justice and equality. History often repeats itself. We need to keep using our voices - our actions matter, and leaders need to be held to account."

Thank you, Eve, for bringing together research, creativity and public history to explore why the history of anti-apartheid solidarity continues to resonate today.

https://youtube.com/shorts/J6fDNthfl4k?feature=share

Research & image credits for 🎞️ AAM Archives, Matt Graham & Chris Fevre

Explorng anti-apartheid boycotts in Newcastle,1989 by Eve Robson (N...

09/08/2026

Today we mark South African Women's Day, commemorating the more than 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of pass laws to women.

Their courage, organisation and determination became a defining moment in the struggle against apartheid and inspired generations of activists in South Africa and around the world.

Earlier this year, for International Women's Day in March, we shared a short preview of this animation created by Lakshina Bajracharya as part of her response to our live-brief engaging Southern African heritage. Today, we're pleased to share the full film in tribute to the extraordinary women whose leadership, resilience and sacrifice helped shape South Africa's journey to freedom.

As Lakshina writes:

"This animation is about celebrating women. It is about recognising strength in resistance."

As we prepare to open the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre later this year, we remain committed to ensuring that the stories of women in the struggle - from those who marched in 1956 to the countless organisers, educators, trade unionists, mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, and community leaders and activists who sustained the movement - continue to be researched, celebrated and remembered.

"Wathint' Abafazi, Wathint' Imbokodo."
"You strike a woman, you strike a rock."

Animation and storytelling: Lakshina Bajracharya

01/08/2026

As we move into the next stage of developing the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre's community mural, we're sharing a glimpse behind the scenes of the research, community engagement and creative process that has brought us here.

Over the past year, we've worked with former anti-apartheid activists, local residents, members of the Southern African diaspora, young people and community changemakers to explore the stories, symbols and values that should shape the mural. Using photographs, campaign posters and archival material from the anti-apartheid movement, these workshops brought together lived experience, community knowledge and archival research, providing the foundation from which artist Ham the Illustrator is now developing the final design.

This short film captures that journey so far. It forms part of a collaboration between the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre and CREATURE (Research Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement) at London Metropolitan University, exploring how heritage can be created with communities through dialogue, creativity and shared memory.

As the mural project's artist and Creative Director, Ham the Illustrator says, "the mural will become a projection of memory and hope, co-created by the communities of the Centre." We hope that same spirit of collective creation will become the heartbeat of the Centre itself: welcoming visitors into a space that honours the global struggle against apartheid while reminding us that the work for justice, equality and against racism continues today. We hope it will inspire people not only to remember the past, but to consider how its lessons can help shape a fairer future.

We'll be sharing more as the design develops and look forward to installing the mural later this year, as the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre prepares to open.

Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and London Metropolitan University

Artist: Ham the Illustrator
Photography and Videography: Alicia Alfonso Molina & Lucia Cáceres Alves
Short film editor: Samara Addai
Research Assistant: Hoyee Tse
School partner: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School
Project Partners: Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre & CREATURE

24/07/2026

Remembering Shanthie Naidoo, who has died aged 91 in South Africa.

"Shantie was a friend and inspiration to everyone who knew her in the anti-apartheid movement. She was forced into exile after refusing to give evidence against her friend Winnie Mandela, after weeks of tortured and solitary confinement.

In London she worked at the International Defence and Aid Fund supporting the families of political prisoners, and in the Women's Section of the African National Congress. Shanthie never gave up working for a better South Africa and a better world.

She would want us not to mourn, but to carry on the fight against injustice and inequality in the world today. Hamba kahle, Shanthie!"

Christabel Gurney, Trustee, Anti-Apartheid Legacy Trust and Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives Committee.

📷 credit - Laurence Sparham/IFL. Courtesy Report Digital.

23/07/2026

How do you create a mural that reflects the many stories of the anti-apartheid movement?

As we move into the next stage of developing the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre's community mural, we're looking back at the conversations that have shaped it so far.

Over the past year, we've worked with former anti-apartheid activists, local residents, members of the Southern African diaspora and younger generations to explore the stories, symbols and values they feel should be represented. Using photographs, campaign posters and archival material from the movement, these workshops combined lived experience, community knowledge and archival research to inform the mural's evolving design.

In our latest blog, Research Assistant Hoyee Tse reflects on this community co-design process and how it has helped shape a mural created with and by our communities, rather than simply for it. Drawing on this work, artist Ham the Illustrator is now developing the final design, weaving together the themes, stories and symbolism that emerged through the workshops.

As the Centre continues to take shape, we're looking forward to sharing more of the mural's development and, we hope, seeing it installed in the community garden later this year.

Read Hoyee's blog: https://antiapartheidlegacy.org.uk/a-mural-that-belongs-to-everyone-the-community-co-design-process-behind-the-new-aalc-mural/

Supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and London Metropolitan University

📷 Alfonso Molina & Caceres Alves

Share this: A Mural That Belongs to Everyone: The community co-design process behind the new AALC mural What does it mean to remember the Anti-Apartheid movement today — and who gets to decide how that story is told? These were some of the questions that sat at the heart of the Anti-Apartheid Lega...

20/07/2026

Coming up on 23rd July as part of Cinema Rediscovered - the UK premiere of digitally remastered African Jim (Jim Comes to Joburg, 1949) at Watershed

A pioneering South African film, African Jim traces one man’s journey into Johannesburg and offers a rare cinematic glimpse of Black life, labour and music at the beginning of the apartheid era in 1940s Sofiatown.

Starring the incomparable Dolly Rathebe alongside The African Inkspots, the film is full of energy, humour and extraordinary musical performances.

But it is also shaped by the racism of apartheid South Africa: its language and framing reflect the biases and limitations of the era. That context is critical to understanding the film today - a reminder of both the constraints Black artists worked under, and the resilience, joy and humanity they carried onto the screen.

Join curator Mosa Mpetha for an introduction and post-screening discussion.

With an introduction and post-screening discussion from curator

Supported by The Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre as part of our commitment to sharing histories of anti-apartheid struggle, solidarity and Black cultural resistance.

Presented as part of Other Ways of Seeing, curated by Mosa Mpetha and supported by BFI awarding funds from the National Lottery. Restored in 4K by R3store Studios funded by the National Gallery of Canada with thanks to Villon Films.

🎟️ More info and tickets at https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/14082/uk-premiere-african-jim-jim-comes-to-joburg

Dolly Rathebe in 📽️ still - Villon Archives

18/07/2026

On this day, we pause to honor a legacy of courage, compassion, and action.

This print of Nelson Mandela was taken by Paddy Donnelly, photographer and videographer with IDAF. Paddy has generously donated many of his photographs and materials to the Anti-Apartheid Legacy Centre.

We’re looking through the prints on the table here - including this one that Paddy has part-colourised as an artistic response and mark of respect to Madiba.

You can also see the red ribbon in the image: a quiet but powerful reminder of Mandela’s leadership on HIV/AIDS awareness. He challenged stigma, launched the 46664 campaign, and called treatment access a human right, saying: “AIDS is no longer just a disease; it is a Human Rights issue.”

Today and every day, we carry forward his example of positive thinking and service to others.