Poster, 'The 50 Guilty People'

This poster was published by HART (Halt All Racist Tours) and handed out to anti-apartheid activists in the weeks before the Springbok Rugby Tour of New Zealand which started in July 1981. It is significant in that it specifically targets people by name and is crudely printed, which provides a contrast to the more sophisticated and subtler posters created by collectives such as Artists Against Apartheid.

In 1973, Norman Kirk's Labour Government had refused to issue visas to the Springbok team invited to tour that year, so the tour was cancelled, whereas Muldoon's National Government refused to do this in 1981, triggering off a traumatic period of civil unrest and violence. Huge amounts of protest literature and ephemera were created during this period, including posters such as this example.