Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement

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The various leaders in the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement were critical to the development of the movement. Leaders such as Charles Perkins, Jack Patten, Vincent Lingiari and Paul Keating all opposed the prejudices and injustices against the Aboriginal People. They all fought for the rights of the Indigenous Australians, and they essentially achieved their battle. Charles Perkins led the Freedom Riders who were active in the civil rights movement. He among others helped form the group who are formally known as Student Action for Aboriginals. They travelled around New South Wales country towns on a mission to find facts but all they encountered was segregation and discrimination towards Aboriginals. They protested for hours to get awareness…show more content…
He devoted his life to obtain equal rights for the Aboriginal people and remained faithful to this until his death in 1957. He and William Ferguson collected evidence to press for an inquiry into the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Board. Patten and Ferguson then published a manifesto together titled ‘Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights’. He also collaborated with William Cooper to organize the 1938 Australia Day ‘Day of Mourning’, this was the protest by Indigenous Australians which drew attention to Australia Day as the day marking the beginning of the dispossession. In 1938 the Aborigines’ Progressive Association split with Jack Patten and Bill Ferguson running dispersed divisions but by 1946 they were operating the APA together again and this time they were opposing federal government plans to launch a rocket range on Pltjantjatjara lands. Jack Patten was very critical to the development of the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement, he believed that there was still discrimination and racism in…show more content…
This speech was delivered to a predominantly indigenous audience and is now acknowledged by many as one of the greatest Australian speeches of all time. Keating was the first Australian Prime Minister to publicly regard to the Aboriginals that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties that the Indigenous Australian communities faced. Keating’s speech included: “We committed murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It is our ignorance and our prejudice”. Paul Keating addressed the troubles and harms that the Aboriginal people experienced since European settlers arrived, and apologized for their
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