The anti-tour movement organised the mobilisation of tens of thousands on the streets through hundreds of protests during the tour.
An anti-tour picket reads: 'but our blood is
the same colour'.
The anti-tour campaign in New Zealand in 1981 saw some of the largest popular mobilisations in the history of New Zealand protest movements. They organised the mobilisation of tens of thousands on the streets, and of thousands willing to confront the police, wearing helmets and carrying shields to protect themselves from the unprecedented scale of police violence.
Prior to the arrival of the springboks team, the focus had been on building such large numbers at demonstrations that the government would abandon their support for the tour as an electoral liability. Muldoon's calculations however, told him essentially that the majority of those opposing the tour were not in the critical electorates, meaning that he did not regard these people as important and he completely ignored these demonstrations, allowing them to continue with little to no impact on his stance. He believed that National could once again win the next general election regardless of these people's distaste for his decisions, as the votes of the people who opposed the tour were not significant enough to make a major difference.
Once the tour was in progress, the protesters' strategy changed to a two pronged approach. The movement would attempt to disrupt or stop the games themselves in the various centres as they were played, while people in other centres would organise large disruptive protests that would stretch police resources, preventing them from deploying reinforcements to the locations of the actual rugby games. They worked in two groups to split the police force, significantly weakening both halves.
The protests were well supported throughout the whole tour and, while only one game was actually stopped, there is a case to be made that the campaign was a success as no South African team ever toured again until after the dismantling of the apartheid system.
The following slideshow shows different ways in which the anti-tour campaign protested against the Springboks and South African apartheid.