Topics: Events

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1937 - North West - view

Native Welfare Conference heralds the beginning of the absorption policy . This means that all Aborigines of mixed descent are expected eventually to be uplifted into the working classes within a single Australian community. People of full Aboriginal descent are expected to “vanish”. The conference resolves that the “destiny of the Aborignal race”, but not of the “full-blood”, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and recommends that all efforts be directed to that end

1937 - North West - view

APB seeks to take care of Aboriginal people whether they be “full-blood”, “half-caste”, “octoroon” or “quadroons”

1937 - North West - view

Patten assembles an alliance of activists in the north-east. Both wings of the APA are involved in political organisation, rallies, and protests in Aboriginal communities and reserves and major NSW centres

1937 - North West - view

Aboriginal people and deplorable conditions on Reserves. The APA follows on with a meeting called the Day of Mourning held at Australia Hall in Sydney on Australia Day 1938 to protest against 150 years of European settlement

1938 - North West - view

Australian Aborigines Conference (APA), Day of Mourning

1938 - North West - view

26 January, 1938, the 150th anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, a Day of Mourning and Protest

1938 - North West - view

“We, representing THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA, assembled in Conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th Anniversary of the whitemen’s seizure of our country, HEREBY MAKE PROTEST against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen during the past 150 years, AND WE APPEAL to the Australian Nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, and we ask for a new policy which will raise our people to FULL CITIZEN STATUS and EQUALITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY.”

1938 - North West - view

Aborigines re-enact Governor Phillip’s landing at 150th anniversary celebrations. Aboriginal men are brought in from western NSW to re-enact the Aboriginal response to the landing of the First Fleet. They run up the beach as boats filled with British marines land at Farm Cove. A group of white dignitaries sit in comfortable safety watching the invasion

1938 - South Coastal - view

'Day of Mourning'

1938 - North West - view

They take ownership of Christianity, changing it for the benefit of Aboriginal people, rather than for their assimilation into white society

1938 - Central - view

The Australian Aborigines League and the Aboriginal Progressive Association hold the Day of Mourning

1938 - Central - view

Australian Abo Call is established

1938 - Central - view

citizens rights

1939 - North West - view

NAIDOC Australian Aboriginal Artist of the Year in 2008

1939 - North West - view

70 of the 350 Aboriginal residents on Cumeroogunga station on the NSW side of the Murray River protest against malnutrition, ill treatment and harsh APB controls. They cross the river and establish a camp on the Victorian bank

1939 - North West - view

charged by NSW police for inducing unrest

1940 - North West - view

American researcher working at the South Australian Museum helps break the academic veto on RH Mathews’ work on Aboriginal language, culture and estates

1940 - North West - view

Many Aboriginal people defer their activism to serve in the Australian army

1940 - North West - view

first Aboriginal officer in the Australian Army

1940 - North West - view

Secretary of the NSW Aborigines Progressive Association. He organises fund raising for returning soldiers