School children at Moree Aboriginal Reserve, February 1965 (Image courtesy State Library of NSW, ON 161/220)
This exhibition at the State Library of NSW – Freedom Ride ‘65: unpublished photos from the Tribune archive – takes a fresh look at this iconic moment in Australian history, when a busload of students from the University of Sydney set off around country NSW to expose discrimination and racism against Aboriginal people. While the students’ aim was to attract the attention of mainstream media, also travelling with them was a reporter/photographer from the Tribune, the weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. Of more than 100 photographs taken by the Tribune’s ‘special correspondent’, only a handful were ever published.
Now, recently digitised to mark the 50th anniversary of the ’65 Freedom Ride, these images provide a compelling alternative view of an event that captured the headlines nationally and internationally and is widely considered a turning point in Australian race relations.
When: 5 September – 29 November 2015
Where: Exhibition Rooms, State Library of NSW, Macquarie Street, Sydney
Become involved: Follow and participate in this exhibition on Twitter and FlickR
#freedomride50 @statelibraryNSW
www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/albums
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