Tom Fiebig looks at the famous Freedom Ride in NSW, which saw students expose the racism and segregation against Aboriginal people across the state
In February 1965, 60 years ago this month, 29 students from the University of Sydney embarked on a historic two-week trip through northwestern New South Wales.
The students confronted the brutal racist segregation and appalling living conditions in country towns and on tightly controlled Aboriginal reserves—bringing widespread public attention to the plight of Aboriginal people.
In the 1960s, mass anti-racist struggles were sweeping the world. The student movement in Australia was particularly inspired by the US civil rights movement. On 7 May 1963, Sydney University students held a raucous demonstration at the US consulate in solidarity with US civil rights activists, with many students arrested.
These protests led to pointed discussions about what was being done to fight racism in Australia, leading students to found a new organisation, Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA). On 7 July, 800 students marched on NSW Parliament House to demand an end to the Aborigines Protection Act, racist laws used to control Aboriginal people. At follow up meetings, drawing inspiration from the 1961 US bus rides against segregation, SAFA members voted to take a “freedom ride” through country NSW.
SAFA’s strategy on the rides combined surveys to document racism and discrimination and direct action protest to confront segregation. The tour was led by the eloquent Charles Perkins—one of only two Aboriginal students at Sydney University.1 The group was open to any student who paid a small fee and agreed to respect the group’s democratically made decisions. Contact with the media was coordinated out of Rev. Ted Noffs’ Wayside Chapel.
The students were deeply shocked by the depth of racism they encountered. Assimilation, the Government policy at the time, dictated that Aboriginal people should leave missions and reserves and settle in towns like “other Australians”. Between 1838 and 1964, Aboriginal reserve land in NSW had shrunk from 15,000 acres to just 1500.
There was, however, considerable resistance to the presence of Aboriginal people from local town councils and residents. As a result, many families were forced to live a marginal existence in shanty towns along rivers and near garbage tips.
In Wellington, one such town, Ann Curthoys (one of the initial Freedom Riders) wrote in her diary, “Houses of tin, mud floors, very overcrowded, kids had eye diseases, had to cart water from the river. It was not a place anyone should have to live in.”
Police harassment then, as now, was also a major problem. An Aboriginal woman at a reserve near Moree told the students that, “[police] barge into houses without knocking—the men often have had only one or two glasses of beer—then drag them to truck without formally telling them they are being arrested”.
According to Curthoys, Bowraville was perhaps one of the worst places SAFA visited. Here the local picture theatre had a physical partition and two sets of doors. The school buses, and even the cemetery, were segregated.
Confronting segregation
The Freedom Ride built on an upswell in organised campaigning for Aboriginal rights in the early 1960s.
When planning their itinerary, the Freedom Riders drew on the advice and connections of two Sydney based-organisations, the Australian Aboriginal Fellowship (AAF) and the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). Both groups involved Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal activists and co-operated with local groups across NSW, fighting to end segregation and to abolish the Aborigines Welfare Board, the state authority that asserted extreme power over Aboriginal people on missions and reserves.
This campaign had significant support from trade unions, particularly those led by the Communist Party of Australia. In 1963-64, efforts led by the South Coast Aborigines Advancement League, organised out of the South Coast Trades and Labour Council, defeated segregation in South Coast towns like Nowra, with unions threatening to ban transport of goods to any shops or services that excluded Aboriginal people.
In July 1964, a delegation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal unionists travelled to Walgett after an appeal for support. Two nine-year-old Aboriginal children had been jailed for stealing crayons and two table tennis bats and balls. The boys’ mothers replaced the stolen items, but subsequently the children were placed in foster homes due to “bad housing.”
Resolutions from unions supporting the delegation led the NSW Labour Council to fund a lawyer to represent the Walgett mothers and they were hosted at union meetings in Sydney.
The union delegates reported to the Labour Council, “the most important event of our trip was a meeting of 100 Aborigines on the Sunday, who, after listening to our delegation, elected a committee to protect their interests.” Harry Hall, a shearer in the AWU, became president of the newly formed Walgett APA branch.
When the Freedom Riders rode into Walgett, their protests were joined by local APA supporters. Their target was the RSL (now the Returned Services League), “the great sacred cow at that time… the most cherished institution in Australia,” as Perkins put it.
The RSL barred Aboriginal people from entry. A SAFA-led picket of the RSL was heckled by white residents.
“Various drunken white men abused us, but some of the Aboriginal women drew these gentlemen’s attention to their own sexual behaviour with Aboriginal women at the time, and that was basically the end of that”, freedom rider Aidan Foy remembers.
Following the demonstration, the students were effectively evicted from the church they had been staying at and made to depart early.
Anticipating trouble, a convoy of sympathisers’ cars, including Aboriginal people, accompanied them. This did not stop a local resident, a young grazier’s son, from speeding past the convey and ramming the bus with his vehicle, eventually running it off the road. Miraculously, no one was hurt.
Media coverage of this incident garnered national and international attention, forcing the Premier, Jack Renshaw, to absurdly deny the existence of “undue racial discrimination” in the town.
Clash at Moree
Moree’s prized feature was its artesian baths, attracting thousands of tourists a year. But the Aboriginal population was strictly excluded. Although there had been some local opposition to the ban from a young local councillor, Bob Brown, this had proved unsuccessful.
With their parents’ permission, the SAFA members collected eight children from the Aboriginal reserve and drove them to the pool in the bus. At the pool, the now ex-councillor Bob Brown tried to buy entrance tokens for six adults and for the eight Aboriginal children. At first, the pool management refused, and there was a standoff. The crowd grew, and the pool manager consulted with the Mayor.
After an hour of picketing, the Mayor relented. He flat-out denied that there ever was a bar on Aborigines entering the pool, it was simply a matter of cleanliness. If he could inspect the eight children to confirm their cleanliness, they could enter. Eventually, all eight were admitted. It seemed that the ban had been broken. So the students set back off.
However, after they left Moree, news arrived that the Moree baths were again off limits to Aboriginal children. The students turned around to re-apply the pressure. Locals greeted their return with intense hostility.
Bob Brown “was grabbed by local youths when he arrived at the pool. He was carried bodily to the front of the pool and dumped in a gutter.” The hostile crowd grew to 500 and began pelting eggs and rotten tomatoes. The students had their hair pulled, received cigarette burns and were spat on.
But their determination paid off. At a crisis meeting, the Mayor vowed to rescind the discriminatory motion barring Aboriginal people from the pool, if the students left town immediately. Claiming victory, the students ended the picket.
Aftermath
The Freedom Rides had a major impact, making oppression of Aboriginal people front page news. In the months that followed, local campaigns for Aboriginal rights flourished. Neville Kelly, who helped establish a Moree Association for the Advancement of Aborigines, said the student actions, “kicked it off, we realised we had to do something”.
SAFA branches were formed in other states. SAFA hosted an O-week meeting at Sydney University that attracted 350-400 people.
Trade unions were also invigorated. The Teachers Federation, which had initially been ambivalent about the confrontational nature of the Rides, sent the students money after the Moree clashes. At a stop-work meeting of the Sydney branch of the Seaman’s Union, members commended students for their, “courageous exposure of the oppression and segregation levelled against the aborigines in NSW towns”. When students arrived in Lismore, the local Trades Hall Council gave them a heroes’ welcome.
Perkins had initially turned down an offer from the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) to provide a speaker system for the rides, wanting to distance the Ride from Communists who led the union.
But in July 1965, five WWF members were part of a 20-strong delegation of Aboriginal trade unionists to Walgett who joined SAFA members, including Perkins, in actions with the local APA that broke the colour bar in the local cinema.
Continuing action eventually defeated formal segregation across Australia and the Aborigines Welfare Board was abolished in 1969.
Tragically, however, laws allowing segregation and racist controls were reintroduced by John Howard with the Northern Territory Intervention in 2007 and continue to this day.
Across the country the social position of Aboriginal people remains dire. Most of the problems observed by the Freedom Riders persist 60 years on—inadequate housing, water and medical services, police harassment and child removal.
Since the failure of Labor’s Voice referendum, racism against Aboriginal people has intensified. Everyday, land rights are being bulldozed to enable Australian capitalism’s addiction to fossil fuels. Yet the legacy of the original Freedom Ride can continue to inspire—and point to the kind of militant action needed today.
Notes
1. It is often (incorrectly) claimed that Perkins was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from University, including in an earlier issue of Solidarity. That title in fact goes to Bundjalung woman Margaret Williams-Weir, who graduated with a Diploma of Education in 1959.
