By Jennifer Thompson
Four hundred Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered in Sydney on January 26, the 60th anniversary of the 1938 Day of Mourning and Protest by Aboriginal people at the sesquicentenary celebrations of European colonisation of Australia.
The re-enactment, organised by the National Aboriginal History and Heritage Council, of the 1938 gathering included a silent march on the original route from Town Hall to the Australian Hall (now the Mandolin Cinema), readings of the original speeches by the organisers' descendants and presentation of the 10 points in the conference manifesto, with a 1998 update answering John Howard's 10-point scam.
Australian Hall is the current focus of a campaign to preserve post-1788 Aboriginal history.
The 1938 conference drew more than 100 Aboriginal men and women, who travelled at great personal risk from NSW, Victoria and Queensland to draw up a manifesto for Aboriginal civil rights. One of the main organisers, Jack Patten, president of the Aborigines' Progressive Association, opened the 1938 conference and moved the resolution:
"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 white man's seizure of our country, hereby make protest against the callous treatment of our people by the white man 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."
Jack Patten's son John and grandsons Jardyn and Jonathan read his speech: "On this day, the white people are rejoicing, but we as Aborigines have no reason to rejoice ... Our purpose on meeting today is to bring home to the white people of Australia the frightful conditions in which the native Aborigines of this continent live. This land belonged to our forefathers 150 years ago, but today we are pushed further and further into the background."
Patten went on to demand "full citizen's rights, including old age pensions, maternity bonus, relief work when unemployed, and the right to a full Australian education for our children. We do not wish to be herded like cattle, and treated as a special class."
He slammed the Aborigines Protection Board of NSW, which oversaw the conditions of slavery, starvation and poor education on Aboriginal stations, as "the greatest handicap put upon us", and demanded its abolition.
Another of the conference organisers, William (Bill) Ferguson, secretary of the Aborigines' Progressive Association, seconded the resolution. His speech was read by his daughter June Barker and grandson Bill Ferguson:
"The Aborigines Protection Act applies to any person having 'apparently a mixture of Aboriginal blood'. We have been waiting and waiting all our lives for the white people of Australia to better our conditions, but we have waited in vain ... I have travelled outback and seen for myself the dreadful sufferings of our people on the Aboriginal reserves.
Ferguson argued against demanding an Aboriginal member of parliament in favour of ordinary citizens' rights, including the right to own land, land grants such as were given to immigrants, the right to have money, for government education, including of Aboriginal teachers and nurses, and the end to the Aboriginal Protection Board system of apprenticing Aboriginal girls for domestic labour, which was "nothing but slavery".
Other descendants and representatives from the same area as the original activists read their speeches, and NAHHC chair Jenny Munro presented "our 10 points".
Redfern activist Lyall Munro spoke about continuing black deaths in custody. He gave a fiery response to the Howard government's Wik bill and to the black leaders who had made concessions during the 1993 negotiations on the Native Title Act, promising that Aboriginal people and their supporters would take the struggle to the international arena, including the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Jenny Munro said that the NAHHC was hopeful of an announcement by state planning minister Craig Knowles to revoke the exemptions on the permanent conservation order covering the Australian Hall, which permit demolition of all but its facade. In October, the Heritage Council of NSW recommended that the exemption be lifted.
The NAHHC's Land and Environment Court action to have the exemption declared void is continuing.