Cyprus Hellene Club - Australian Hall
The Cyprus Hellene Club - Australian Hall , a three-story building on Elizabeth Street in Sydney , Australia , hosted the first Australia-wide Aboriginal protest on January 26, 1938 , the Day of Mourning . This event is considered a historical starting point for the Aborigines to see themselves as part of the Australian nation, as they were claiming their civil rights at the time.
This building was a significant historical testimony to Australia in 2008 by the Australian Government under monument protection provided.
Day of Mourning
In November 1937, William Ferguson of the Australian Aboriginal League and William Copper of the Aboriginal Progressive Association agreed that they would prepare and hold a protest on January 26, 1938 as the Day of Mourning in Sydney. On this day, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney was to be celebrated. The Day of Mourning , the alternative day of the Aborigines, was advertised on the radio and other media. The organizers drew up a 12-page pamphlet entitled Aboriginal Claims Civil Rights and tried to rent the Sydney Town Hall , but were not given permission and moved to the Australian Hall .
On January 26, 1938, the participants in Congress gathered for a march of over 1,000 people for the Day of Mourning to the Australian Hall , including William Ferguson, Jack Patten , William Cooper, Pearl Gibbs , Margaret Tucker and Douglas Nicholls , where they accepted their demands Discussed civil rights to the government of Australia. 100 people discussed their political demands at the congress.
Since 1938, Aborigines have continuously celebrated this day, which was recognized in 1940, and used it to protest for their rights, such as Australia's largest indigenous protest for their social, political and cultural rights in Australia in 1988.
The Australian Hall event is of Identity to the Aborigines and the entire Australian nation to this day, held on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first British colonists to join Port Jackson , Sydney on the First Fleet .
History of the building
The original building was used between 1910 and 1913 for the meeting of German emigrants under the name Concordia. In 1920 it was used by the Knights of the Southern Cross , a right-wing Catholic lay fraternity who built the Australian Hall building in the 1920s. They sold it to the Hellenic Club in 1979 and Greek Cypriots use it as the Cyprus Hellene Club . In 1994 it was recognized that the building was a good example of the Federation Romanesque architectural style in the street.
Aboriginal people primarily wanted the interior of the building to be like it was in the 1920s, and there was also an intention to build a historic center of Aboriginal history. The New South Wales government had ordered it to be preserved, but allowed all changes except the facade of the building.
In 1998, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Day of Mourning, 400 protesters held a silent march on the original route and the ten injustices of the Congress Manifesto were reaffirmed. This march was connected with the demand for the preservation of the Australian Hall, the site of the 1938 Congress.
The social importance of the building was undisputed, it served as a meeting point for various cultural groups such as theater and film and formed a rarely preserved example of a social building in Sydney that has served it from its origins to the present day. The interior of the building was restored to the state of 1938 and on May 20, 2008, the building was registered in the Australian National Heritage List on the instructions of Peter Garrett , Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts , and all parts are protected.
Web links
- environment.gov.au : Cyprus Hellene Club - Australian Hall, New South Wales (picture of the entrance gate of Australia Hall), English
Individual evidence
- ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 236 kB): Australia Heritage Database. Cyprus Hellene Club - Australia Hall , p. 7, in English, accessed October 2, 2011
- ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 31 kB): INCLUSION OF A PLACE IN THE NATIONAL HERITAGE LIST , in English, accessed on October 2, 2011
- ↑ environment.gov.au : Cyprus Hellene Club - Australian Hall, New South Wales , in English, accessed October 2, 2011
- ^ A b dictionaryofsydney.org : Australian Hall , in English, accessed October 2, 2011
- ↑ sydneyarchitecture.com : c Federation Romanesque. 1890-c. 1915 , in English, accessed October 2, 2011
Coordinates: 33 ° 52 ′ 5.6 ″ S , 151 ° 12 ′ 38.3 ″ E