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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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Royleston
Royleston was a grand Glebe residence built in 1880. It was purchased by the NSW Child Welfare Department in 1922 for use as a ‘home’ or ‘receiving depot’ for male…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Aboriginal Medical Service
Author: Lily Thomas-McKnight The Aboriginal Medical Service Cooperative Ltd (AMS) was opened on 20 July 1971 at 171 Regent Street, Redfern to provide free medical support to Aboriginal people in…
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Aboriginal Legal Service
Author: Lily Thomas-McKnight The Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) was established in 1970 at 142 Regent Street in the heart of Redfern. The ALS was created as a response to intense…
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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…
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Burlington Hotel
Aboriginal people were not free to drink in public bars in Sydney through to the 1970s. Although not upheld by law, this informal apartheid was enforced by patrons, publicans and…
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Aboriginal Housing Company
There has always been an Aboriginal presence in Redfern because it is centrally located, housing was once relatively cheap, and it was close to industry and jobs in South Sydney.…
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NAIDOC Week in Sydney
NAIDOC Week had its foundations in Sydney just over 80 years ago. There was a growing political activism within Sydney’s Aboriginal community in the early 20th century. The formation of…
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Australian Hall
This was where Aboriginal rights activist Jack Patten read the resolution on citizenship rights at the Day of Mourning Conference on 26 January 1938, which only Aboriginal people were allowed…
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Bidura
Bidura was a grand residence designed and built as a family home by architect Edmund Blacket. It was purchased by the NSW Child Welfare Department in 1920 for use as…
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Aborigines Welfare Board
The Chief Secretary’s Building on Macquarie Street was the meeting place for the now notorious Aborigines Welfare Board until the Board’s abolition in 1969. The organisation was formed in 1883…