Topic : Self-determination

Image 1 - 26 January 1938 was a day of mourning for Indigenous Peoples, not a day of celebration.

Image 2 - The Second World War meant that the fight for Aboriginal equality had to be set to one side for a number of years. Nearly 2000 Indigenous Australians became involved in the war effort.

Image 3 - Charles Perkins led the Freedom Riders on their journey through country towns in the 1960s. They were highlighting segregation in rural areas.

Image 1 - Wave Hill Cattle Station was the site of one of the most famous strikes by Indigenous people. Lasting nine years, the walk-off only ended when the Gurindji people had their traditional lands returned to them in 1975.

Image 2 - The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was erected on 26 January 1972. It helped focus international attention on the Aboriginal land rights issue.

Image 3 - The Aboriginal Flag made its first international appearance, flying over the Tent Embassy, in 1972.

Image 1 - Many Australians campaigned against the Apartheid system in South Africa, but they ignored the treatment of the Indigenous people in their own country.

Image 1 - The Australian constitution prevented the federal government from making laws for the Indigenous population, or counting them in a population census. This was changed by the 1967 referendum.

Image 2 - By 1967 there could no longer be any justification for denying equal rights, under the constitution, to Indigenous people. There was no real 'no' campaign against the constitutional change.

When the age of paternalism and protectionism finally came to an end in the 1970s, self-determination for Indigenous people became the new government policy.

E. G. (Gough) Whitlam. Prime Minister from 1972-1975, he initiated many of the new self-determination policies that began to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.