One! Two! Three! Four! We Don’t Want Your Racist Tour! At three years old, I marched with my mother down Lambton Quay, terrified of nuclear war, lost among a sea of adult legs. Today, bombarded by images of violence online, I feel powerless—but protest remains the only real tool of democracy. My silence is not golden. I should, would, march with them—and I will.
THE SPRINGBOK TOUR – Talia Marshall
11th September 2025
September 12, 1981. Flour bombs rained from the sky, violence flared on the streets outside the field at Eden Park, in Tāmaki Makaurau. The Springbok tour in Aotearoa mobilised mass protests fighting what many regarded as the ultimate symbol of white rule – the all-white South African team. They had a material and psychological influence on both the oppressed and the international anti-apartheid movement. Talia Marshall ( (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku), a writer based in Ōtepoti, joined protests with her mother. Forty four years later, she reflects on the time, and the place of protest ahead of the March for Humanity protest in support of Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau on September 13.
Photo : Ebony Lamb