Freedom Ride (Australia)
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Part of a series of articles on Racial segregation |
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Apartheid sign from South Africa
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The Freedom Ride of 1965 was a significant event in the history of civil rights for Indigenous Australians.
Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement, students from the University of Sydney formed a group called the Student Action for Aborigines, led by Charles Perkins (the first Indigenous Australian to graduate tertiary education) among others, and travelled into New South Wales country towns on what some of them considered a fact-finding mission. What they encountered was de facto segregation; the students protested, picketed, and faced violence, raising the issue of Indigenous rights. They commonly stood protesting for hours at segregated areas such as pools, parks and pubs which raised a mixed reception in the country towns. Australia overwhelmingly passed a 1967 referendum removing discriminatory sections from the Australian Constitution and enabling the federal government to take direct action in Aboriginal affairs.
At the time of the Freedom Ride in 1965, some Aboriginal People of Australia were counted separately in the census and their rights as citizens were regularly ignored. In 1964 a University of Sydney protest against racial segregation in the United States had brought comments from members of the public urging students to look to their own backyard if they wanted to draw attention to racial discrimination.
The original Freedom Riders were: Charles Perkins, Gary Williams, Aidan Foy, Alan Outhred, Alex Mills, Ann Curthoys, Barry Corr, Beth Hansen, Bob Gallagher, Brian Aarons, Chris Page, Colin Bradford, Darce Cassidy, David Pepper, Derek Molloy, Hall Greenland, Helen Gray, Jim Spigelman, John Butterworth, John Gowdie, John Powles, Judith Rich, Louise Higham, Machteld Hali, Norm Mackay, Paddy Dawson, Pat Healy, Ray Leppik, Rick Collins, Robyn Iredale, Sue Johnston, Sue Reeves, Warwick Richards and Wendy Golding.
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