Australian Freedom Riders

The Charles Perkins 1965 freedom ride was the act of a group of university students organised to have a bus tour of western and coastal New South Wales towns. The whole point of the freedom ride was to draw attention to the state in which aboriginal health, education and housing was in, it was in a poor state. There goal was to hopefully point out and to help lessen the social discrimination against aboriginals that had existed between them and white residents. The group of students formed this group and called it “Student Action for Aborigines” (SAFA) IN 1964 to plan out how the trip would go and try and get media coverage.

Arguably the most important referendum in Australia’s history occurred on May 27th 1967. This was the day that decided Indigenous Australians place in society, representing Aboriginal discrimination coming to an end. The vote was not about getting citizenship or voting right for the Aboriginals, it was targeted at making amendments to the constitution, allowing the Indigenous Australians to be counted in the Australian census and allowing Australian laws that included the Aboriginal Australians. The 1967 referendum had two sections requiring change, section 51 and 127. The eradication of all prejudice requirements within Commonwealth constitution was passed with voters support by the Australian body with an astonishing  90.77% of votes.

In an article published shortly before the 1967 referendum, Charles Dixon, Manager of the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs explained how he as an Aboriginal person felt about the referendum:

The American Freedom Rides were motivated by the ‘Journey of Reconciliation’ in 1947, “led by civil rights activists Bayard Rustin and George Houser”1. The Freedom Rides in America involved riding a bus opposing the segregation of black and whites riding together in buses2.

In comparison to the white people’s rights, the Aboriginals had next to little or no rights. Charles had the desire to make a change in the world and therefore created the Freedom Ride in 1965. The Freedom Ride consisted of thirty white students from university who planned to take a bus and travel New South Wales. During this journey, they intended to investigate the living conditions of Indigenous people in all aspects of life: health, education and housing. They wanted to study the different races and their interactions with each other in Australia, and the level of racism and protest against it. They travelled to the town of Dubbo, where Aboriginal people were locked up for singing in their language. In theatres in Walgett, the black people were seated in the front, while the white people had the privilege to enjoy from the top seats. If the black people were to sit in the whites’ allocated spots, they were tossed down and the police were called. In Moree, Indigenous people were restricted from using local pools and in Bowraville, segregation was the norm. While the Freedom Riders travelled to these places, they were mistreated. In Moree for example, the female students of the Freedom Ride were spat on and Charles Perkins himself had an egg thrown at him, and was punched. Despite such difficulties, they

The 1967 referendum was the repeal of section 127 and section 51 in the Commonwealth Constitution. With the repeal of these two sections the “Federal Government were allowed to make laws for Aborigines and Aborigines were now counted in the national census”(About the 1967 Referendum). The 1967 referendum can be commonly considered the turning point in Australian history and culture for finally addressing discrimination towards the Indigenous people and taking responsibility for Aboriginal affairs. However, some do not have the same representation of the results of the 1967 referendum because of the little improvement it has done for the Indigenous people.

The attitudes of the white Australians also had a huge impact on change of rights and freedoms as it pressured the government into giving Aboriginals rights and freedoms. The 1967 was testament to this when a huge 90.77% of Australians agreed that Aboriginals had the right to be counted in the census. There has never been any real public objections to giving aboriginals rights, merely quiet harbored prejudices in the persons’ mind. On the other side of the case the Aboriginal rights in general have not improved with many Aboriginals being

The American and Australian Civil rights were very similar in the goals they wanted to achieve. The African Americans wanted racial discrimination to end and so did the Indigenous Australians. Both countries used events and individuals to make these dreams a reality. Events held in America and Australia such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Tent Embassy. A few individuals who made a difference in the American and Australian civil rights are Martin Luther King Jr and Charles Perkins.

A group of people risked their life to obtain equality for African Americans in the south. The Freedom Riders were a group of around 13 people. Most of them were African Americans but there were always a few white skinned people in the group as well. There was no set leader for the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the Southern United States. The south was referred to as the most segregated part of the U.S. The main goal of the Freedom Riders was to desegregate and become “separate but equal.” They had also set out to defy the Jim Crow Laws. The Freedom Riders had a little bit of help from two court cases: Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia. These court cases ruled that it was

In 1967, a landmark event occurred for the Indigenous Community of Australia. They were no longer declared Flora and Fauna This means that Aboriginal people would be considered a part of the landscape and not humans in their own right.. In 1967, a Referendum was held by all members of Australian society voting on the issue of allowing Indigenous Australian to be a part of the census and thereby able to vote and be counted as part of Australia’s population. This achieved not only citizenship for Aboriginal people, but put the issue of Indigenous Rights on both the political and social platforms. This essay will look at the lead up to the Referendum, how Aborigines and their supporters communicated their belief in their rights to the

"You have the right to live in the kind of world where your rights and freedoms are respected" conveyed in Article 28 draws attention to the way aboriginal people were forced to live in, as they were prejudiced from the main towns in Australia. Article 28 gave respected freedom and rights to the indigenous to live however they want. On the 4th of May, 1961 a similar protest to the aboriginal freedom ride took place. A group of African-American and white civil rights protestants began bus trips to several towns in South America. The Freedom Rides were established by the Congress of Racial Equality, a US civil rights groups. Their purpose was to test the 1960 decision that segregation of national bus terminals was prohibited. They attempted to use 'white only' lunch tables, waiting rooms and restrooms. This proved to be a dangerous mission as they endured a lot of violent. Another evidence of White-Americans hatred towards the Africans was the incident that transpired inAnniston, Alabama. One bus was firebombed and the African-American passengers were forced to flee for their lives.

During the period between 1965 and 2014, many campaigns involving Indigenous Australians were held to support their rights. The effectiveness and results of the campaigns from earlier years lead up to how Aboriginal people are treated today. The Freedom Rides was one of the first campaigns to be held within the time period and consisted of a group of university students promoting awareness of poor treatment of Indigenous Australians. The 1967 Referendum, which was influenced from the Freedom Rides, was the introduction of a law involving the Aboriginal people being included within the census and the government making laws

This was the beginning of aboriginals gaining a symbol of recognition. One of the many impacts during the 1967 referendum were the aboriginals beginning to gain a voice, due to them being counted in the census and therefore their social status was improved. Due to the vast amount of

The great majority of Australian prisoners were taken captive by the Japanese in the Second World War, it is their stories that are the most well known. Over 22,000 Australians became prisoners of war of the Japanese in southeast Asia.

On 27th May 1967, 90.77% of Australians voted in favour of changes to the Australian Constitution to improve the welfare of Indigenous signifying the end of racial discrimination . The 1967 Referendum was a practical and symbolic strategy which proposed to include Aboriginal people in the census and to allow the Commonwealth government to make laws for Indigenous Australians. The Referendum has had a significant impact on Indigenous policies as it