Australian Freedom Ride

Question 1

What was the aim of the Freedom Ride?

Answer 1

• To raise awareness of racial discrimination in NSW rural towns
• To help Aboriginal people realise they were no second class citizens and didn’t have to take the racism and racist practices
• To protest segregation

Question 2

In 1965, Aboriginal people were:

Answer 2

• not citizens
• dispossessed from their land
• living on reserves = no plumbing electricity etc.
• suffering racism in country towns = segregation in swimming pools, cinemas, not served in cafes etc.

Question 3

what sort of campaign was the freedom ride?

Answer 3

• a non violent campaign

Question 4

Who organised the bus tour of rural NSW towns?

Answer 4

Charles Perkins, one of the first aboriginal university students.

Question 5

How many students accompanied him?

Answer 5

29 university students from Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA) accompanied him

Question 6

When did the bus leave?

Answer 6

12 February 1965

Question 7

What did the students do?

Answer 7

Surveyed aboriginals in the towns about living conditions.

Question 8

Over the ride, what did the students witness?

Answer 8

desperate poverty
unsanitary living conditions
racial discrimination directed against them

Question 9

What were some of the aboriginal discriminations they witnessed?

Answer 9

• Town of Moree, Indigenous children banned from using public swimming pool
• Bowraville, cinema partitioned
• Walgett, veterans only allowed into the RSL (Returned soldier league) only on ANZAC day

Question 10

What did they do after witnessing those discriminations?

Answer 10

• In Walgett they protested at the RSL club

- Moree, they took aboriginal kids into the pool

Question 11

What kind of violence were they attacked with?

Answer 11

• In Moree, white women spat and jeered at the female students
• Jim Spiegelman was hit by local
• Perkins was threatened, punched in the back of head and egg thrown at him
• At late at night, bus was rammed by a farmer

Question 12

What were the outcomes?

Answer 12

• national and international media coverage of the plight (bad situation) of Aboriginals in rural towns
• raised awareness in urban Australia of the situation of Aboriginals in rural towns
• Stirred discussions of Aboriginal affairs around Australia
• Increased pressure for national reform

Question 13

What did they give to the Aborigines?

Answer 13

They gave them hope. They stirred their imagination and desire for human rights.