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Freedom Riders demand equal treatment.
A group led by aboriginal activist Charles Perkins made a bus tour through New South Wales. They protested about discrimination in shops, theaters, bars, clubs and swimming pools. -
White voters demand a better deal for the first Australians.
After 90% 'yes' vote the government gave Indigenous Australians the right to vote and be counted in censuses, and ended the protection polices. -
Gurindji people demand a better deal.
200 workers walked off the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory. They wanted better wages and conditions, and their traditional land back. The Gurindji eventually gained ownership of the aera in 1985. -
Aboriginal tent embassy set up in Canberra.
The Embassy said the blacks were now going to get up and fight back on the issues of education, health, police violence, and locking people up.
Bobby Sykes, Aboriginal Activist -
Land rights to be granted to first Australians.
A government commission recommended that Aboriginals should get back the land where they now lived and had traditionally lived. -
First Aboriginals Land Rights Act.
However this Northern Territory law only gave the indigenous people some areas of arid and largely useless land. Other land claims were often thrown our by the courts. -
The government denies that a 'Stolen Generation' exists
In a Senate inquiry submission on compensation for forcibly removed children, it stated: "The government questions the reliability of claims about the 'stolen generation,' suggesting that, at most, up to 10% of children were separated for various reasons, some forcibly, some not. It argues the term is rhetorical." -
Walk for reconciliation
About 250,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to show their support for reconciliation. Australian and Aboriginal flags flew side by side on top of the Bridge's arch, and a skywriter wrote the word 'Sorry' in the sky above the Harbour. -
'Unfinished Business: Indigenous stolen wages' report
This event received "compelling evidence that governments systematically withheld and mismanaged Indigenous wages and entitlements over decades". It also found that these practices "were still in place in the 1980s". -
The Australian Parliament apologizes to the Stolen Generations.
Both the government and the opposition support the apology and say 'sorry' to Aboriginal people who were taken away from their families from 1900 to the 1970s. The apology has no legal effect on the ability of Aboriginal people claiming compensation. -
Mick Dodson receives Australian of the year
Aboriginal law professor Mick Dodson receives the 2009 Australian of the Year award for his lifetime commitment to improving the lives of Aboriginal people and helping to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.