1967 Referendum
Author: Danika Davis When Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (AAF) activists filled Sydney Town Hall for their first meeting on 29 April 1957, they set off a series of actions that led to one of Australia’s most influential events: the 1967 Referendum. Forming Read More
Koiki: the Mabo star
Author: Danika Davis Australian people observe Mabo Day on 3 June each year to commemorate Eddie Mabo’s courage and determination to overturn the fiction of terra nullius, recognising that First Nations peoples had rights to land prior to European settlement. Read More
Apology To The Stolen Generations
On 13 February 2008, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a formal apology to Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, with specific reference to the Stolen Generations, at Parliament House in Canberra. Hundreds of Sydneysiders gathered at Redfern Community Read More
Golden Gloves gym
Author: Professor John Maynard Tom Laming’s Golden Gloves gym was the chosen training ground of many talented fighters across the four decades of its existence. Laming opened his first boxing gym in 1947 at the rear of 15 Westmoreland Street Read More
Aboriginal boxing in Sydney
Author: Professor John Maynard The historical boxing gym was a place of smell and noise, of sweat and liniment and the constant smack of gloves against the heavy bag and the rat-a-tat-tat of fists rattling upon the speed ball. There Read More
Gadigal mural
The Gadigal Mural is a public artwork on the back wall of the Australian Design Centre building in Barnett Lane, Darlinghurst. The collaborative artwork was designed by three Aboriginal artists: Dennis Golding, Lucy Simpson and Jason Wing. Their work references Read More
Dave Sands Lane
Dave Sands Lane is a small lane in Glebe, which runs behind Phillip Street, and between Denman Lane and Mitchell Lane West. It was named in 2014 in honour of Dave Sands, a famous Aboriginal boxer, who lived and trained Read More
40,000 Years mural
Author: Redfern Station Community Group The landmark 40,000 Years mural on Lawson Street, opposite Redfern Station, was painted in 1983. Mural artist Carol Ruff led a team of artists who collaborated with the local community to create a mural to recognise the importance of Redfern as a living and meeting place for Read More
Aborigines Protection Board Office
Author: Paul Irish An unassuming terrace house once located at the back of the State Library of NSW was home to the Aborigines Protection Board (APB) at the peak of its brutal intrusions into the lives of Aboriginal people from Read More
Darlinghurst Gaol
Author: Paul Irish Darlinghurst Gaol began construction in 1822 and was opened in 1841 to replace the ageing and overcrowded Sydney Gaol on George Street near Circular Quay. It took 50 years to complete, with new buildings being added to Read More
Barcom Glen
Author: Paul Irish The dense forest of houses below St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst obscures the landscape that existed there for nearly a century after the arrival of Europeans in Sydney. Rushcutters Creek, which flowed through pools and cascades down to Read More
Speakers’ Corner at The Domain
Author: Paul Irish Speakers’ Corner was established in the eastern end of The Domain near the Art Gallery of NSW in 1878. Aboriginal speakers were active there from the late 1930s, including civil rights campaigners such as Jack Patten, Tom Read More
Elizabeth Town
In the mid-1810s, at the same time as Governor Lachlan Macquarie was waging war on the Aboriginal people of south-western Sydney, he tried to encourage Aboriginal people along the coast to adopt a more settled existence. In 1815, Macquarie established a Read More
Richard Hill’s House
Author: Paul Irish From the 1820s to the 1920s, a red brick cottage existed on Bent Street between Macquarie and Phillip streets. The house was built by the family of Francis and Frances Cox. From the 1850s until the 1890s Read More
The Rushcutters Bay settlement
Author: Paul Irish Most of the harbourside bays of Sydney’s eastern suburbs contained Aboriginal settlements at different periods throughout the 19th century. Bayside reclamation works since that time have removed or covered over many of the physical traces of this Read More
St Mary’s Cathedral
Author: Paul Irish When Australia’s first two Catholic priests arrived in Sydney in 1820, many Aboriginal people around Sydney had already been exposed to the ideas of the Christian religion. One of the priests, Father John Joseph Therry, quickly got Read More
Artspace Gallery, Surry Hills
Author: Paul Irish During the 1970s, the Australian art world and the broader public became aware of the contemporary practice of painting and other artistic expressions of traditional Aboriginal culture, particularly among the desert artists of central Australia. Drawing on Read More
Mrs Macquarie’s Chair
Author: Paul Irish In January 1988, an Aboriginal Tent Embassy was set up at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair (at Mrs Macquaries Point / Yurong) in protest against the planned bicentennial celebrations of European settlement in Australia. For Aboriginal people, the arrival Read More
Reconciliation Park
Reconciliation is the symbolic recognition of the honoured place of the First Australians in our society. The movement for reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community began in the early 1990s. It led to Read More
NYE Welcome to Country illuminations
On New Years Eve 2015, a specially choreographed Welcome to Country was projected on to the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge, making the entire structure a message of hope for 2016.
Woolloomooloo Bay
Author: Paul Irish Woolloomooloo is the name given to the Yurong Creek valley located immediately east of Sydney Town and the Domain, which later became Sydney’s first suburb. In 1793, when Commissary General John Palmer was granted 100 acres at Read More
Observatory Hill
At over 40 metres above sea level, Observatory Hill is the most elevated point in Sydney. It’s at the crest of the rocky ridge that separates Sydney Cove to the east and Darling Harbour to the west. It was known Read More
Blackwattle Creek
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Blackwattle Creek was originally a tidal watercourse that flowed from swampy lands that are now within the grounds of the University of Sydney. The creek flowed from this swamp through a valley thick with Read More
Aboriginal sites on Goat Island
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Goat Island is a small rocky landmass in the waters of Sydney Harbour. It was inhabited by early colonial Aboriginal identity Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and was said to have belonged to Bennelong’s Read More
Moore Park Campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward An Aboriginal campsite was discovered in 2014 beneath the car park of the Moore Park Tennis Centre. It was unearthed during archaeological excavations brought about by the proposed construction of a light rail line Read More
Tinker’s Well
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward All people depend on fresh water to live, and so it is usually the case that reliable sources of water known to Aboriginal people were later used by Europeans. The most permanent of these Read More
Moores Wharf Midden
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In the late 1970s, the NSW Maritime Services Board began to redevelop the Moores Wharf area at Millers Point on the end of the eastern shore of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour). The board decided Read More
Moore Park Engraving
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward On a slab of sandstone just outside Centennial Park there were once some Aboriginal engravings. Rock engravings were produced when Aboriginal people carved them onto level sandstone platforms, ledges or small rock exposures. They Read More
Yurong Cave and Yurong Midden
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Yurong Point is known today as the site of Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, a seat carved from stone in the 1810s so Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth could enjoy the view of the harbour. It Read More
William Street
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1925, a stone axe was found more than five metres below the surface during construction work at the corner of William and Riley Streets in East Sydney. Almost eighty years later in 2003 the Read More
St Mary’s Cathedral Hatchet
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward An Aboriginal stone axe head, also called a ‘ground-edge hatchet’, was found in a road cutting behind St Mary’s Cathedral in 1876. The hatchet would have started its life as a large flat river Read More
The KENS Site
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2003, archaeologists discovered a large Aboriginal campsite in the western part of central Sydney. It was named the KENS Site after the surrounding streets (Kent, Erskine, Napoleon and Sussex). The earlier building had Read More
Junction Lane Campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1997, an Aboriginal campsite was discovered at Junction Lane in Woolloomooloo during archaeological excavations ahead of the construction of the Eastern Distributor motorway. Underneath around a metre of recent ‘fill’ (historically deposited material Read More
Conservatorium of Music
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1998, some Aboriginal stone artefacts were found during archaeological excavations ahead of the redevelopment of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on Macquarie Street. The excavations were being undertaken to investigate an area of Read More
Wynyard Walk campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward During archaeological excavations associated with the construction of the Wynyard Walk pedestrian link in mid-2014, a small Aboriginal campsite was located. The campsite consisted of several Aboriginal stone artefacts located in natural soil underneath Read More
Darling Walk Midden
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2009 archaeologists found an Aboriginal campsite, or ‘midden’, on the eastern side of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) in an area known as the Darling Quarter, west of Harbour Street, between Bathurst and Liverpool Read More
YININMADYEMI Thou didst let fall
This major artwork in Hyde Park South honours Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who served in our nation’s military and their families. Sydney-based artist Tony Albert created the work, inspired by the story of his grandfather Eddie Albert’s narrow wartime escape. The work is also based on research Read More
Recognising military service
Author: Catherine Freyne On National Aborigines’ Day in July 1969, a crowd of about 400 people gathered in Hyde Park south and watched as two Aboriginal children laid wreathes on the curved steps of the Anzac Memorial. They were led Read More
Douglas Grant
Author: Nicole Cama Douglas Grant was a natural born leader, fiercely intelligent artist and poetry enthusiast who served as a Private in the 13th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force before he was captured as a Prisoner of War in Read More
Military service and Aboriginal voices
Author: Catherine Freyne The City of Sydney’s history team started recording oral histories with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service people in 2008. The project gained new impetus in 2013 with the commissioning of YININMADYEMI Thou Didst Let Fall the memorial artwork Read More
Bert Groves
Author: Laila Ellmoos Bert Groves was an active and vocal Sydney-based Aboriginal activist in the 1950s and 60s, who improved the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia. Although politically active as a young man, it was his experience Read More
Government Boatsheds
The government’s Marine Board boatsheds were on the eastern side of Circular Quay at Bennelong Point, just to the south of Fort Macquarie and the Sydney Rowing Club boatsheds. Around 18 Aboriginal people were camped here from 1879 through to July Read More
Aboriginal organisations in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) The Australian Aborigines Progressive Association (AAPA), led by Fred Maynard, operated in Sydney from 1924 to 1927 when it was disbanded due to police harassment. In 1932 in Victoria, William Cooper, Bill Onus Read More
Significant Aboriginal people in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss Arabanoo In December 1788, not long after the landing of the First Fleet, Governor Phillip ordered the capture of Arabanoo (born c1758). Arabanoo was dressed in European clothes, trained in English and called Manly (after his place Read More
Aboriginal people and place
Author: Anita Heiss and Melodie-Jane Gibson The Council of the City of Sydney acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of our land – Australia. The City acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora Nation as the Read More
Jack Patten
John (Jack) Patten was a public speaker and William Ferguson’s collaborator in the early days of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). He was born in Cummeragunja on the Murray River; unlike many Aboriginal people at the time, he attended high Read More
Significant Aboriginal events in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss January 26 was nominated as Australia Day to celebrate the anniversary of white settlement. It commemorates the ceremonious unfurling of the British flag at the head of Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1788. By the Read More
Imagining the people
Author: Anita Heiss The ways in which Aboriginal people have been portrayed by non-Aboriginal people reflect Euro-centric values and have been largely negative. Strong representations of Aboriginal people and society have developed over time, often classifying individuals as ‘traditional Aborigines’ Read More
Government policy in relation to Aboriginal people
Author: Anita Heiss Since the European invasion until very recently, government policy relating to Aboriginal people has been designed and implemented by non-Aboriginal people. The common justification for most policies for Aboriginal people was that they were ‘for their own Read More
Charles ‘Chicka’ Dixon
Charles ‘Chicka’ Dixon was born at Wallaga Lake and worked as a stevedore on Sydney’s wharves. He worked in the Seamen’s Union as a shop steward before following the political footsteps of those who inspired him. Chicka Dixon heard Jack Read More
Charles Perkins
Born on the Todd River in Alice Springs, Charles Perkins moved to Adelaide in 1945. Spotted by a soccer talent scout, he played for Everton in England and returned after one year and became one of South Australia’s best players. Read More
Ricketty Dick
Author: Laila Ellmoos Ricketty Dick (c1795-1863) was an Aboriginal man who lived in Sydney in the early to mid-19th century. He was also known as Warrah Warrah or William (Bill) Warrah, Worrell or Worrall. Ricketty Dick was a familiar and Read More
Cora Gooseberry
Cora Gooseberry was wife to King Bungaree and was an identity in Sydney for 20 years after his death. Her Aboriginal name was recorded as ‘Carra or Kaaroo’. She was known as ‘Queen of Sydney and Botany’ and ‘Queen of Sydney Read More
Aboriginal involvement with the church
Author: Anita Heiss Much of the early interest in Sydney’s Aboriginal people was as a study of ‘primitives’ in need of salvation. Catholic priests, Fathers Therry and Power baptised around 45 Aboriginal people at St Mary’s Cathedral between 1820 and Read More
Aboriginal labour in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss Because mainstream histories of Australia often render Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as invisible or describe them in negative terms, these histories often fail to recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been involved Read More
Aboriginal arts and culture in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss Apart from rock paintings and engravings, there is little evidence of the artistic and cultural activities of Aboriginal people prior to the white invasion. However, there are several accounts – the journals of officials and others in Read More
Western science and Aboriginal people
Author: Steven Ross Imperialism has devastating effects on Indigenous peoples the world over, and science is often used to ‘prove’ western superiority over so-called ‘primitive’ Aboriginal groups. This justified the conquering of Aboriginal people by white invaders, resulting in the Read More
Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs
The Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs was established in December 1964 to provide assistance to Aboriginal people living in Sydney. Although it was originally intended as a non-political and non-religious organisation, it soon became an important stepping stone in the push Read More
First Contact
Author: Anita Heiss In 1770 Captain James Cook met few Aboriginal people on the Eastern Australian shoreline. Because they did not grow crops and because he assumed there were no inland fishable rivers, he concluded that Australia’s interior was empty. Read More
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Primary School
A number of private and public schools in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs have provided primary education for Aboriginal people. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Primary School at Waterloo, originally known as the Waterloo Estate School when it opened in 1858, is Read More
Darlington Public School
A number of private and public schools in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs have provided primary education for Aboriginal people. Darlington Public School was established in 1878, moving to new premises on Abercrombie Street in 1975. It has educated primary school age Read More
Cleveland Street High School
A number of private and public schools in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs have provided primary education for Aboriginal people. Cleveland Street High School has educated generations of Redfern and Waterloo children since it was established in 1867. Originally the school provided Read More
Alexandria Park High School
A number of private and public schools in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs have provided primary education for Aboriginal people. In 1982, Cleveland Street and Waterloo High Schools were merged to become a co-educational facility in Alexandria Park on the site of Read More
Waterloo Town Hall & Library
Waterloo Town Hall was converted to a library in the early 1970s. The Koori Collection is a dedicated Aboriginal history collection held at the library which was officially launched in July 2007 as part of NAIDOC Week. It comprises over Read More
Federal Match Factory
Sydney has long been a magnet for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people seeking work opportunities, shelter and connections with community and family. Many worked in private industry in Sydney’s southern suburbs. Local industries where Aboriginal people worked were the Read More
Australian Glass Manufacturers
Sydney has long been a magnet for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people seeking work opportunities, shelter and connections with community and family. Many worked in private industry in Sydney’s southern suburbs. Local industries where Aboriginal people worked were the Read More
Francis Chocolates
Sydney has long been a magnet for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people seeking work opportunities, shelter and connections with community and family. Many worked in private industry in Sydney’s southern suburbs. Local industries where Aboriginal people worked were the Read More
Eveleigh Railway Yards
Eveleigh Railway Yards was Sydney’s largest employer from the time it opened in 1886. It was also one of the biggest employers of Aboriginal people living in Sydney. Many Aboriginal men also worked in the Alexandria goods yard loading trains Read More
Trades Hall
When Aboriginal people began to organise politically, there were often sympathetic non-Aboriginal people to help in the struggle, some of them unionists. From the 1950s, unions and Aboriginal organisations worked closely to build momentum towards the 1967 Referendum on Citizenship Read More
Redfern Town Hall
Town Halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs provided large civic spaces that Aboriginal organisations used to gather and socialise for leisure activities and political meetings. Aboriginal activist William Ferguson was a member of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). Key campaign meetings Read More
Sydney Town Hall
Sydney Town Hall played an important role in the movement towards self-determination from the 1960s onwards. Like other town halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs, it was a ‘hall for hire’, providing a large civic space where Aboriginal organisations could gather Read More
Alexandria Town Hall
Town Halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs provided large civic spaces that Aboriginal organisations used to gather and socialise for leisure activities and political meetings. Regular dances were organised by the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs and the Redfern Read More
Empress Hotel
The Empress Hotel on Regent Street was frequented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the 1940s through to the 1970s. Although it was a place where Aboriginal people were able to drink and socialise freely, it was also Read More
Clifton Hotel
The Clifton Hotel on Botany Road in Waterloo was a place where Aboriginal people gathered. It was where the decision was made to start the Koori Knockout, and where Bob Bellear decided to pursue a legal career after watching police Read More
Redfern Community Centre
The Redfern Community Centre, a focus for Aboriginal social and cultural activities in Sydney, is located in a refurbished former factory on The Block. It is surrounded by a landscaped park which is used for recreation and functions. Local Aboriginal Read More
Aboriginal Dance Theatre Redfern
Aboriginal Dance Theatre Redfern (ADTR) was founded in 1979, occupying part of the old Black Theatre building before moving to Renwick Street. It offered accredited courses in Aboriginal dance and theatre skills, and provided a dance outreach program for children Read More
Eora Centre
The Eora Centre (now Eora College) in Chippendale is a campus of the Sydney Institute of TAFE. Originally located at Regent Street, and later relocated to its present site on Abercrombie Street, it has been a centre for contemporary visual Read More
Redfern Park
Redfern Park was the site of a speech given by the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating on 10 December 1992, to launch the Year of the Indigenous Person. Subsequently referred to as the ‘Redfern Speech’, it focused on reconciliation, Read More
Land Rights
Along with the protection of children, and the right to vote and be counted, Aboriginal people also mobilised politically around land rights throughout the 20th century. Sydney had seen protests about Aboriginal land ownership from the early 20th century, but Read More
Freedom Ride
Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA) was formed in 1964 as a way of engaging students at the University of Sydney with issues encountered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia. The group had been directly influenced by the Read More
Boot Trade Union Hall
The Boot Trade Union Hall at Redfern was a popular gathering place for Aboriginal people living in Sydney following the Second World War, especially for dances on Friday evenings. It was also the site of an important Aborigines Progressive Association Read More
Aboriginal Medical Service
The Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) was set up in July 1971 to provide free medical support to Aboriginal people living in Sydney. It was the first Aboriginal community-run medical service in Australia, and had a holistic approach to health care Read More
Aboriginal Legal Service
The Aboriginal Legal Service was established in December 1970 to provide free legal assistance to Aboriginal people living in Sydney. The service was intended to counteract disadvantage and discrimination faced by Aboriginal people, especially those unable to afford legal advice. Read More
St David’s Hall
The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) was an all-Aboriginal political organisation formed in Sydney in 1924 by Fred Maynard. He had been involved in the Coloured Progressive Association, a group active in Sydney between 1903 and 1908, and was profoundly Read More
Dawes Point / Tar-Ra
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward The Aboriginal name for the peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove is Tar-Ra. It is also known as Dawes Point because it was the site of an observatory built in April 1788 Read More
Koori Knockout
The NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout, known to most as the Koori Knockout, has been held annually since 1971. It grew out of a longstanding tradition among Sydney’s Aboriginal community of playing and watching rugby league, starting in the 1930s Read More
Redfern All Blacks
The dynamic and successful Redfern All Blacks rugby league team formed officially in 1944, but may have begun informally a decade earlier. The team attracted talented players from around NSW including Eric ‘Nugget’ Mumbler, Babs Vincent and Merv ‘Boomanulla’ Williams. Read More
Paddington Town Hall
Author: Paul Irish Town Halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs provided large civic spaces that Aboriginal organisations used to gather and socialise for leisure activities and political meetings. Paddington Town Hall was the venue for the first Aboriginal Debutante Ball in Read More
Bangarra Dance Theatre
Bangarra Dance Theatre is a dance company formed in 1989 by staff and students of National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA), including Carole Johnson who had been involved with the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre since the 1970s. Bangarra Dance Read More
Gadigal Information Service
When Radio Redfern stopped broadcasting in the early 1990s, the gap was quickly filled. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned and operated organisation Gadigal Information Service was founded in 1993. It broadcasts a full-time radio station, Koori Radio (93.7FM 2LND), Read More
Radio Redfern
Maureen Watson and her son Tiga Bayles laid the foundations for Radio Redfern in 1981, when they started broadcasting for 10 minutes each week on community radio station 2SER 107.3 FM. When Radio Skid Row (2RSR 88.9 FM) was allocated Read More
