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Aborigines claim citizen rights
On Australia Day 1938 a meeting of aboriginal people was held in Sydney. A document called 'Aborigines claim citizen rights' was circulated. This declaration was the first time Aboriginal people had made a national protest. It was widely reported in the papers and many white Australians now started to take notice of their plight. -
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, theaters, bars, clubs and swimming pools. -
Gurindji people demand 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
After 90% 'yes' vote the government gave Indigenous Australians the right to vote and be counted in censuses, and ended the protection policies. -
Bringing them home
The stolen generation was one of Australia's worst secrets. Few white people knew about it and it didn't feature in the history books until the 1980s. In 1997 the human rights commission report on this horror story made a number of recommendations. -
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 victimization, locking people up. Bobby Sykes, Aboriginal activist -
Land rights to be granted to first Australians
A government commission recommended that Aboriginals should get back the land where they now lived and had traditionally lived -
First Aboriginal land rights Act
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. -
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody presents report
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody presents report. 339 recommendations, with the final recommendation being that a formal process of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia be undertaken.
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation established by Act of Parliament – to have a 10 year-lifespan. -
The march across Sydney Harbour Bridge
The marches involved people of all ages and races. They showed increasing concern about the need to apologize for the past treatment of Aboriginal people, improve their living standards, provide them with a fair deal over land rights and give their culture more status -
Faye Lo Po, reveals 69 million dollars were stolen from 11,500 Aboriginal people by successive NSW governments
A cabinet submission prepared by then Minister for Community Services, Faye Lo Po, reveals 69 million dollars were stolen from 11,500 Aboriginal people by successive NSW governments from 1900 to 1970. The submission was never tabled, but leaked to the National Indigenous Times newspaper in 2004. -
National sorry day
The National Sorry Day Committee announces that this year, Sorry Day will be a 'National Day of Healing for All Australians' in an attempt to better engage the non-Indigenous Australian community with the plight of the 'Stolen Generations'.