Days of Rage calendar

This calendar was produced in 1982 to raise legal funds for protesters who had been arrested the year before during the Springbok Rugby Tour of New Zealand. Its name was influenced by the 'Days of Rage' protests in Chicago in 1969 against U.S. imperialism and the Vietnam War.

The Springbok Tour of 1981 was a seminal event in New Zealand's political and social history - exposing deep rifts in society. Many New Zealanders objected to the tour because of South Africa's policy of racial apartheid, and many questioned racism at home. Protests caused obstruction and the cancellation of games, and violence escalated between protesters, supporters and police during the tour. 1500 people were charged with offences during the protests.

The calendar features a rich array of photographs of protesters and police. Many of the images are from the third and final test in Auckland on 12 September 1981, with others from the South Island, primarily Dunedin, Christchurch and Nelson.

Organisations such as Halt All Racist Tours (HART) and Citizens Opposed to the Springbok Tour (COST) raised money through the sale of calendars and books. This particular calendar raised money for the HART legal fund, and was used by Athol McCredie who was a protester and photographer during the Springbok Tour.

Protester / photographer

McCredie went on protest marches in Wellington and Palmerston North and took his camera. However, he found it difficult to protest and take photographs. So for the last match in Auckland on 12 September 1981, he was solely a photographer. Some of his images are in Te Papa's collections. He recalls:

'I was thus both protester and photographer, but primarily photographer, and more particularly a curator/editor of photographs. The reason I bought the calendar was largely professional interest ... As publisher of a book of photos on the tour I was thoroughly involved in the visual record of the tour and intensely interested in what other people were putting out. Nevertheless, I used the calendar as a calendar because the photography of the tour was a big part of my life at that point. I suppose you could say that having it on the wall was a kind of expression of my identity' (2018).

Reference: McCredie, A. (1981). The Tour - photographs: a record by 16 photographers of protests against the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand. Wellington: A. McCredie.