Nelson Mandela Resource Guide: Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division

Dennis Brutus is a South African-born poet and human rights activist who spearheaded a successful campaign to ban apartheid South Africa from international sports competitions. He founded the South African Sports Association in 1961 and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SAN-ROC) in 1963 and was subsequently arrested and jailed, placed under house arrest, and banned from all literary, academic and political activities.The Dennis Brutus Papers consists of the Defence Committee, anti-apartheid posters, photographs, recordings, and subject files on Nelson Mandela, human rights, South African politics, divestment, apartheid and sports, African literature, and the struggle against apartheid in general.

Joel Carlson devoted his law career to opposing apartheid, he developed a reputation for defending black South Africans in a variety of cases including removal from homelands, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture cases and pass law violations. Joel Carlson South African Legal Files, 1958-1990, chronicles Carlson's legal career in South Africa through the late 1960s and early 1970s. The collection highlights the kinds of cases that Carlson understood to define his anti-apartheid work, prison abuse investigations and the defense of political detainees, and his representation of Winnie Mandela and members of her family.

The collection consists of materials relating to the 1994 election in South Africa. It was the first election in which all South Africans, registered on a common voters roll, could vote. The election took place under the direction of Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).The IEC is the institution responsible for running and administering elections. The IEC was established in terms of the 1993 Interim Constitution and later through the 1996 Act of Parliament. The IEC’s main aim is to strengthen constitutional democracy through the delivery of free and fair elections. The South Africa Election Material collection contains campaign materials including bumper stickers, but primarily printed matter about the African National Congress (ANC).

The African Miscellaneous Collection includes a South Africa Pass Books from 1952, which banned blacks from residing in certain areas and limited their right to travel; a speech delivered by Nana Mahomo, Pan Africanist Congress's Spokesman on Foreign Affairs before the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco; papers delivered by Alvin Wolfe and Edward Marcus at a national conference: the South African Crisis and American Action, held in Washington, D.C. in December 1965; a list of United States corporations with investments in South Africa; and a statement by the Students for a Democratic Society calling on Chase Manhattan Bank to divest in South Africa

William Haywood Burns Burns spent much of his career working to recruit more people of color into the legal field, committed to educating lawyers on the complexities of representing underserved communities for the public good. Active in efforts against the system of apartheid for 25 years, Burns joined the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). He took his first trip to South Africa during the 1994 election as an official observer for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Southern Africa Project. The Haywood Burns Papers contains a bulk of the files predominantly documents Burn’s first trip to South Africa for the 1994 election.

James Haughton, labor leader, social worker, and community activist was the founder of Fight Back, established in 1964 to combat racial discrimination in the building trades unions and construction industry. He was also active in the tenant's rights, peace, and anti-apartheid movements with the Committee for a Free South Africa. The James Haughton Papers encompasses folders concerning anti-apartheid movements in the United States and Africa, including the African National Congress, the Unity Movement of South Africa, the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of South Africa, and the South African Military Aid Fund.

The South Africa Black Consciousness Movement Collection consists primarily of interviews, speeches, organizational materials and printed matter documenting the politics and activities of Black Consciousness organizations in and outside of South Africa from 1983 to 1991.

The Southern Africa Collective Collection consists mostly of manuscripts and typescripts of articles South Africa, a monthly journal published in New York by the Southern Africa Committee from 1965 to 1983. Includes correspondence, leaflets, petitions, mimeographed reports, printed matter and memorabilia of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, a group of employees of the Polaroid Corporation in the United States opposed to the involvement of that company in the implementation of the Pass Laws in South Africa.

The United Nations Centre Against Apartheid Collection documents several conferences, including Against Apartheid Meeting in Jamacia 1979, and the UNESCO Anti-Apartheid Meeting in Paris 1981. The collection also holds material on memorial tributes and other commemorative events organized by the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid.