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The Australian Freedom Ride was a 1965 campaign by university students who rode a bus through regional New South Wales to publicly expose and protest racial discrimination against Aboriginal people. Inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement, the students visited towns like Walgett and More to challenge segregation at swimming pools, clubs, and other public spaces, bringing national and international attention to the issue and galvanizing future activism.
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The Wave Hill Strikes, also known as the Gurindji strike, were a 1966 walk-off by about 200 Gurindji stockmen and their families from the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory. Led by Vincent Lingiari, the strike was initially a protest against poor working conditions and low wages but quickly escalated into a nine-year fight for land rights and self-determination.
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The 1967 Australian referendum was a vote held on May 27, 1967, to change two clauses in the Australian Constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
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the Australian Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest site in Canberra and the longest continuous Indigenous protest for land rights and sovereignty in the world
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The Mabo decision was a landmark 1992 High Court of Australia ruling that legally recognized the existence of native title in Australia. It overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) and established that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have traditional rights to land based on their customs and laws
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Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech was a landmark address in which he became the first Australian Prime Minister to publicly and explicitly acknowledge the injustices inflicted upon Indigenous Australians by European settlers.
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Kevin Rudd's Apology was a formal apology delivered on February 13, 2008, by the Australian Prime Minister on behalf of the government and the people of Australia to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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On 14 October 2023, Australians voted in a referendum about whether to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. It was the first referendum of the 21st century. The referendum did not pass.