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Events

mawa – grasp – to take hold

walama – return or come back

There was a growing political activism within Sydney’s Aboriginal community over the 20th century, which led to the development of facilities and institutions for urban Aboriginal people. While Redfern was a particular focus for activism around civil and land rights, and a number of organisations integral to self-determination were established here, but there are also sites all over Sydney of political significance to Aboriginal people.

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Essays, Events, Organisations, People, Places, War
  • 1967 Referendum

    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…

  • Koiki: the Mabo star

    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…

  • Apology To The Stolen Generations

    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…

  • Recognising military service

    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…

  • Redfern Park

    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…

  • Land Rights

    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…

  • Freedom Ride

    Freedom Ride

    The decade of the 1960s was a time of protest against racism around the world. In 1965, Sydney University student and Arrente/Kalkadoon man Charles Perkins joined with university students and…

  • Koori Knockout

    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…