Moving Blackwards: Black Power and the Aboriginal Embassy

In the late 1960s, in that liminal space between the end of federal government policies of assimilation and the beginning of self-determination, stood one group of Aboriginal activists who were certain that they would overcome. Along with older and more conservative campaigners, they rejected assimilation and the White dominance of Aboriginal affairs. But it was the depth of their anger, their impatience and their disenchantment that marked their politics as new. This group was dismissive of a worldview that counselled eventual change. They were tired of the letter writing and petitioning, the focus on equality and multiracial togetherness of the dominant Aboriginal organisations. While they were intensely proud of their Aboriginality, in a way that was much more vocal than their elders had been, their reading of Black American activists had also been enlightening. They not only recognised the parallels of poverty, racism and political powerlessness between themselves and other oppressed minorities, but were also coming to learn that legislative change, no matter how grand or symbolic, was no guarantee that their problems would be addressed. It was time for new tactics to be considered.^[3]

These were the activists of the Aboriginal Embassy, that enduring symbol of Aboriginal demands for land rights. But the Embassy is much more than a story about land. It is also a story about these activists, their preoccupations and their alignment with Black Power. Black Power was an attitude that manifested itself in numerous ways through the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was embraced by both pragmatic Indigenous activists committed to reconciliatory approaches and, although they were in a minority, those inclined towards a revolutionary and violent solution. At its heart, however, Black Power represented an overt rejection of the lack of power in Aboriginal lives. For some activists, this meant a drastic reshuffling of Aboriginal organisations where Whites held important decision-making roles. Others saw the adoption of Black Power ideas as a way of focusing on a positive reclamation of Aboriginal identity. For others, the fight against racism and poverty was paramount.^[4]

The first unmistakable Black Power upheaval was felt in August 1969, when activists in the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League invited Caribbean Black Power leader Roosevelt Brown to visit. Shortly afterwards, and claiming to be ‘enlightened’ by him, they issued a statement that described the proper role of Whites within the organisation as ‘standing back’ while Aboriginal decision-makers did their job.^[5] Over the next couple of years the shockwaves rippled, as the idea took hold among other organisations — the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs in Sydney, and the national umbrella organisation, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI). Here, a bitter clash at the 1970 annual conference resulted in the formation of a new organisation. In the National Tribal Council, it was declared that Aborigines would decide their own priorities, free from paternalistic White ‘do-gooderism’.^[6]

An even more militant organisation was formed at the end of 1971, when Denis Walker, the son of long-time Aboriginal campaigner Kath Walker, announced the formation of the Black Panther Party of Australia. Once described by the Australian as a ‘calm young man’,^[7] he was now known for his abrasive and provocative militancy. ‘Everything was taken off you with a gun’, he declared. ‘The only way you are going to get it back is with a gun’.^[8] Along with his ‘field marshals’ — young Aboriginal men including Paul Coe, Gary Foley, Gary Williams and Billy Craigie, as well as Jim Doherty and Sam Watson — Walker had declared his commitment to the American Party’s revolutionary ideology of armed self defence of the Black community and the ‘eventual overthrow of the system’.^[9] Just as the American Panthers had done, the Australian Panthers demanded a United Nations–supervised plebiscite to be held among Aborigines in order to determine ‘the will of black people as to their national destiny’.^[10] The American Panthers were, Walker argued, teaching Blacks to ‘stand up and assert their rights — and they’re getting them’.^[11]

The end of 1971 and beginning of 1972 saw a flurry of militant activity by Black Power activists. In Brisbane, a demonstration over racism resulted in complete chaos. Queensland activist Pastor Brady and other Aborigines threw punches at the police. Walker climbed onto the roof of a car to address the demonstrators, holding his arms in a giant V. Stones were thrown, a policeman kicked as he lay on the ground.^[12] By the end of the day, nine Aborigines had been arrested, including Walker. Outside the courthouse following their hearing, they gave a collective Black Power salute and later, in an interview, Walker explained the mood. It was, he said, the beginning of a ‘big breakout’; the first time that Blacks had said ‘we’re going to do it our way and to hell with the authorities’.^[13]

Late in the year, the Captain Cook memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney, was covered with land rights slogans. Several days later, a tower at La Perouse was graffitied with clenched fist symbols of Black Power, along with ‘Black is beautiful’, ‘Black is proud’, and ‘Pigs are suckers’.^[14] In Victoria, the walls of the Advancement League headquarters were decorated with clenched black fists and Black Power slogans directed against ‘honkies’ and the slow transition to Black control within the organisation.^[15] Early in January 1972, Michael Anderson achieved momentary celebrity by reminding Australians of Evonne Goolagong’s trip to South Africa in 1970. Anderson was a Black Power activist originally from Walgett, a town in country New South Wales that had been targeted by the Freedom Rides in 1965. He attended the Australian Open tennis tournament wearing a ‘Black Power is Black On’ badge, asked Goolagong to become a spokesperson for Black Power and to decline the MBE she received in the New Year’s honours list.^[16]

Despite this show of militancy, Black Power activists actually held much in common with their predecessors. Although Black Power activists were generally more outspokenly and confidently Aboriginal than older Indigenous campaigners, many of the differences between the new guard and the old were attitudinal and stylistic. Just as previous campaigners had done, Black Power activists campaigned for equal rights and protested loudly about the status of Aboriginal citizenship. In addition, as Heather Goodall and others have shown, the fight to regain land among militant campaigners of the 1960s and 1970s was also an important goal with a long precedent.^[17]

By the late 1960s, however, campaigns for land were increasingly being fought not only on moral grounds, but also on the basis that Aborigines had particular rights that stemmed from their status as Indigenous people. Two of the most significant campaigns of this decade were those fought by the Gurindji and the Yolngu. Supported by Aborigines both moderate and radical, these land claims became powerful national symbols of the fight for land rights. Together, they contributed to a growing expectation that the importance of land to Aboriginal people would find an appropriate governmental response.^[18]

The policy announcement, when it eventually came, was a harsh blow. On 25 January 1972, Prime Minister McMahon’s statement boasted of the achievements in Aboriginal Affairs, and proclaimed empathy with the ‘Aboriginal [desire] to have their affinity with the land with which they have been associated recognised by law’. Nonetheless, and despite the recommendations of the Office of Aboriginal Affairs, McMahon’s statement effectively denied Aboriginal land rights. Instead, his vision was for a system of ‘special purpose’ leases, conditional upon Aboriginal peoples’ ‘intention and ability to make reasonable economic and social use of the land’.^[19] The response from Black Power activists was instantaneous.