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Indigenous Australians take the initiative

By pxxge

  • Freedom Riders demand equal treatment.

    Freedom Riders demand equal treatment.
    A group led 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 for a better deal.

    Gurindji people demand for a better deal.
    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

    White voters demand a better deal for first Australians
    After a 90% 'yes' vote the governemnt gave Indigenous Australians the right to vote and be counted in censuses, and ended the protection policies.

  • Aboriginal tent embassy set up in Canberra.

    Aboriginal tent embassy set up in Canberra.
    'The Embassy said that blacks were now going to get up and fight back on the issues of education, health, police victimisation, locking people up.'
    - Bobby Sykes, Aboriginal activist

  • Lands rights to be granted to first Australians.

    Lands rights to be granted to first Australians.
    A government commission recommended that Aboriginals sould get back the land where they now lived and had traditionally lived.

  • The First Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

    The First Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
    However this Northern Territory only gave the indigenous people some areas of arid, and largely useless land. Other land claims were often thrown out by the courts.