For reasons that I have never fully understood, between about 1968 and 1972, the Wits campus underwent a period where posters of all colours and sizes proliferated, advertising everything from Rag Ball to intervarsity rugby, from Nusas teach-ins to visiting lecturers, and from Fresher’s Reception to rock and roll festivals. Every now and again the apartheid thugs that ran the country would provoke a rash of political posters, and the SRC elections were always an active time for poster artists. Poster season normally began in February, with student registration, and ended just as suddenly in September, when the SRC elections marked the end of extra-mural activities for the year and the start of serious, last minute swotting. As the saying goes, if you had not started your revision by the time the campus fruit trees came into blossom, then you had left matters too late. I suspect that it was also a time of the year when religious societies started attracting new converts.
Political Poster
Why it all happened is probably worthy of a small dissertation in its own right. In that era, student affairs came under the management of strong and capable SRCs, led by intelligent leaders, such as John Kane-Burman, Robin Margo and Mark Orkin. The tradition might have continued had Rex Heinke remained in the country, but after he...
