Aboriginal Protest Movements

Commonwealth of Australia formed. Indigenous Australians are excluded from the census and the lawmaking powers of the Commonwealth Parliament

The first protest group formed in New South Wales was the Aborigines' Progressive Association (APA) which was established in 1925 by a group of Aboriginal people and some white supporters sympathetic to their cause. The APA wanted to promote citizenship rights and wanted to bring an end to racial discrimination. In later years the also APA got support form trade unions and the Communist Party of Australia.

It is the first major protest by Indigenous people. The manifesto “Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights” and the newspaper “Abo Call” are published.

The Cummeroogunga people walked off their reserve in protest at their living and working conditions

Aboriginal people in Pilbara in Western Australia started a strike that was to last for three years over work and pay condition

National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) formed with support from Federal and State Governments, churches and major Indigenous organisations. Its aim is to promote Aboriginal Sunday as a day to draw community attention to Indigenous people in Australia.

In 1963 the people on the Yirrkala reserve in Arnhem Land sent a petition written on bark to the House of Representatives in protest at 390 square kilometres of their land on the Gove peninsula being given to a mining company. The Yirrkala people said they had not been consulted before the land, which they depended on, had been taken away. Although they eventually lost their court case in 1971, the bark petition did lead to the formation of the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission which meant that sacred Indigenous sites could no longer be easily destroyed

The American 'Freedom Riders' of the 1960s also made their mark on Australia and in 1965 Freedom Rides began in New South Wales. In America the Freedom Riders were helping black people register to vote, in Australia they were high-lighting the extent of segregation in many country towns. The Australian Freedom Riders were led by a young Indigenous man named Charles Perkins and a group of non-Indigenous university students. They spent a summer driving to country towns and protesting at the segregation and discrimination that was rife in the New South Wales countryside. These towns included places like Moree and Walgett, where Aboriginal people could only use the town swimming pool at certain times, where they were banned from socialising in the hotels and where Indigenous ex-servicemen could not enter the local RSL

The Wave Hill Walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.[7] The memories of their brutal treatment over several generations weighed heavily on the minds of Gurindji people long before they walked off the station.

The Wave Hill Walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.[7] The memories of their brutal treatment over several generations weighed heavily on the minds of Gurindji people long before they walked off the station.

Tent Embassy established outside Parliament House. It adopts the Indigenous flag.

Whitlam Government elected; White Australia policy abolished. Department of Aboriginal Affairs established. Self-determination adopted as policy for Indigenous people.

Neville Bonner is elected on the Liberal Party ticket in Queensland.