In 1964, on this day the Chairman of the World Campaign for the Relief of South African Prisoners Mr Humphrey Berkeley, accompanied by forty-eight Members of Parliament marched down Whitehall to the the wrought iron gates of South Africa House.

Rivonia Trial Protests in LondonFinding no letter box in which to post the appeal, Mr Fenner Brockway, Labour MP for Eton and Slough, led the march to a side entrance. The door was opened, and quickly slammed in his face, and he dropped the appeal into the letter box. It called for the release of the prisoners "in the name of human rights and racial equality".

British Members of Parliament call for the release of Nelson Mandela and his companions "in the name of human rights and racial equality".Because the previous day, Judge-President of the Transvaal Mr Justice de Wet had found Nelson Mandela and seven other men found guilty of sabotage and plotting the overthrow of the South Africa Government. Mandela (46), the former leader of the banned African National Congress, Walter Sisulu (52), former secretary-general of the ANC; Dennis Goldberg (33), a white man who was formerly an executive member of the banned Congress of Democrats; Govan Mbeki, a former African teacher and journalist; Raymond Mahlaba (44), son of an African police constable; Elias Motsoaledi (39), chairman of non-European trade unions; and Andre Mlangeni (38), ANC branch secretary, were all sentenced to death.

For his own act of defiance, Berkeley, the only Conservative member of the delegation would be expelled from the party the following day by the British Prime Minister Enoch Powell.