Details

Latitude

-30.64729221

Longitude

152.8533981

Start Date

1965-02-23

End Date

1965-02-23

Layer Warning:

Please be aware that readers may find some of the language and content distressing. 

We'd hardly arrived when this woman, the president or secretary or something of a local Aborigines Welfare Committee, assured us there was no discrimination in Bowraville, and told us all about how wonderful her committee was. A group of us went out to the reserve which was about one and a half miles out of town. It was controlled by the Welfare Board but didn't have a manager… The conditions were very bad. The houses were weatherboard, very run down, and hadn't been looked after for 15 years (the houses were 26 years old). They were extremely overcrowded. The general picture we got from talking to the people on the reserve was one of extreme lack of job opportunity… The discrimination in the town was absolutely shocking - by far the worst we'd encountered. We learnt there was a partition in the picture theatre separating the aborigines from the whites. The aborigines had to buy their tickets separately and could only enter the theatre after the picture had started. We learnt of a number of segregated pubs and cafes, and of instances of segregation in the school about 6 years earlier. The two populations were almost completely separate. At first we weren't sure where to start - the town was just so bad. We thought the press could blow up a big story about it, but they refused, obviously instigating us to put on a demonstration. 'We decided to first go up to the manager of the picture theatre, who had previously told Hall that he would let no aborigines in the back of the picture hall, including Charlie Perkins. We went up to see him but he refused to answer the door. The press got a photo of him opening the door slightly and shut it.' – Ann Curthoys

Sources