Australian Aboriginal League

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Document of the Day of Mourning

The Australian Aborigines League was founded by William Cooper in Melbourne in 1933 . It was an organization that campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Other founding members were Margaret Tucker , Caleb and Anna Morgan and Shadrach James. This league was the first political association that dealt exclusively with Aboriginal rights, and only Aboriginal people could be members of it.

The League's political slogan was A fair deal for the dark race and it saw itself as representing the interests of all Aboriginal Australians. Her main focus was in Victoria , New South Wales , South Australia and Western Australia . From 1934 to 1936, the League developed a 9-point political program that included the influence of Aborigines in international and national politics, no discrimination against Aborigines, consideration of traditional Aboriginal laws, equal civil and land rights for Aborigines, equal education and training demanded further claims for the Aborigines.

William Cooper drafted a petition to the British King George V , which included direct representation, Aboriginal voting rights in Parliament and the transfer of Aboriginal rights to their original land as demands. He and his organizations collected nearly 2,000 signatures for it from 1933 to 1938, although regional administrations and state governments prevented them from doing so.

In 1937, William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines League petitioned the New South Wales Prime Minister because the residents of the Cummeragunja Station home were beaten with canes by a new administrator, AJ McQuiggan. In protest, known as the Cummeragunja Walk-off , 150 and 200 residents of the station respectively crossed the Murray River and set up camp in Barmah.

In 1937, William Ferguson , leader of the Aboriginal Progressive Association , allied with Cooper to enforce the Day of Mourning, which is held on January 26th each year, and in 1938 to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of British colonization should be started. With this day the demand for full civil rights and equality of the Aborigines was connected. In 1940 the demand for this day was realized. This was one of the major successes of the Aboriginal political movement in the past century.

When League Secretary Cooper died in 1941, political activity declined. It was only after World War II that Douglas Nicholls and Eric and Bill Onus reorganized the League; she became the Aboriginal Advancement League in Victoria in 1957 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on www.emelbourne.net.au , accessed July 4, 2009
  2. ^ The Australian Aboriginal League at www.mabonativetitle.com , accessed July 4, 2009
  3. ↑ Cumeragunja on Reason in Revolt , accessed 4 July 2009
  4. ↑ Day on Mourning on Reason in Revolte , accessed July 4, 2009