Freedom Ride Essay

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In February 1965 a fourteen day Greyhound bus tour was organised by Charles Perkins, an Aboriginal Civil Rights Activist and the first indigenous man to graduate from Sydney University, alongside a group of about twenty-eight Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal university students to coastal and Western New South Wales. The main idea behind the trip was to advertise and improve the arising segregation problems which led to the discrimination and vilification of the local Aboriginal people. The Freedom Ride addressed these issues through picketing, protesting and conducting surveys and interviews. Even though it was a small protest in size it was a significant event in the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement and helped to contribute to the 1967 referendum.
Along with other locations, the North Western New South Wales towns of Walgett and Moree were investigated by the Freedom Riders due to being known as racist areas. They participated in protests and pickets at the most racially segregated locations. The Walgett RSL was well known for the fact that returned Aboriginal servicemen were forbidde...

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