Poster for National Detainees Day on March 12th

Poster for National Detainees Day on March 12th

Chicago Anti-Apartheid

The poster on first viewing depicts South African women, men, and children marching in solidarity against the social injustice of apartheid. Words across the top show the date of an organized protest as well as messages across the top and bottom stating “UNITE FOR VICTORY” and “ACT AGAINST REPRESSION”, followed by a biblical quote from Isaiah 61.1. With the earliest symbolic reference coming from the bible, a red sky during sunset suggests a calm night ahead, and a red sunrise signifies a storm is coming. When analyzing that interpretation in this image we can see the authors are signifying they are almost done with their fight and a calm is coming or the storm they are causing with their protest is just beginning. Within the red sky there is a white dove, which is invoked as a symbol of piece, which is a stark contrast to the colors in this poster. According to the biblical story within Genesis 8:11, a dove was released by Noah after the flood in order to find land; it came back carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf), a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land. In this poster the red dove can be a symbol of god leading these people to freedom after the flood of the anti-apartheid movement. Something else to take note of is the fist clench and raises symbolic gesture of Black Solidarity and power. Allison Young states in, Visualizing Apartheid Abroad: Gavin Jantjes’s Screenprints of the 1970’s, “These accounts testify to the ways in which the anti-apartheid movement was itself informed by the visual and performative semiotics of the American civil rights movement”.

Columbia College Chicago Students

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Collection, College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago

College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago.

[no text]

[no text]

“The oral histories are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. “ All rights remain with the creators.

[no text]

[no text]

[no text]

[no text]

[no text]

[no text]