The fight for aboriginal human rights

Australia Day

1938

in 1938, a document "Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights" was created. This was a national protest.

War created awareness

Period: 1939 to 1945

During the war, indigenous Australians got awareness of the war

Freedom Riders demand equal treatment

1965

A group lead by Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins made a bus tour through New South Wales. They protested about discrimination in shops,theatres,bars, clubs and swimming pools

Gurindji people demand a better deal

1966

200 workers walked off the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory. They wanted better wages and conditions, and their traditional lands back.The Gurindji eventually gained ownership of the area in 1985

White voters demand a better deal for first Australians

1967

After a 90% 'yes' vote the government gave Indigenous Australians the right to vote and be counted in censuses, and ended the protection policies

Aboriginal tent embassy set up in Canberra

1972

The Embassy said that blacks were now going to get up and fight back on the issue of education, health, police victimization, and locking people up. Bobby Sykes, Aboriginal activist.

Land rights to be granted to first Australians

1974

A government commission recommended that Aboriginals should get back the land where they now lived and had traditionally lived.

First Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

1975

However, this Northern Territory law only gave the indigenous people some areas of arid and largely useless land. Other land claims were often thrown out by the courts