The celebration event will be co-presented by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, the Charlie Perkins Trust and the University of Sydney Student Representative Council — all of whom were our partners in a recent re-enactment of the original Freedom Ride [see page 1]. We will also hold a “Controversial Conversation” that engages Aboriginal leaders and thinkers and social justice campaigners exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander realities, entitled “Freedom or Frustration”. Food and drinks will be available onsite from 4pm, with conversation at 5pm and the main event from 7pm.
Why are we celebrating? Well, in 1965, 29 University of Sydney students, led by Charles Perkins, took to country NSW roads in a bus, to investigate and protest the conditions in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were living. It was a turning point in civil rights in this country, and two weeks ago, a bus carrying current students, staff, and 11 of the original Freedom Riders, made a journey retracing part of the route of the original 1965 Freedom Ride. Our students were led by Kyol Blakeney, the first Indigenous man to be President of the Student Representative Council, in attending community forums and visiting schools and a juvenile justice centre, speaking with local people and finding out what has changed since 1965 and what still needs to be done.
In every town the bus visited, our original Freedom Riders, most of them now around 70, received a hero’s welcome, as well they deserved. Local people wept as they recalled both the conditions that prevailed before 1965 and remembered the arrival of Charles Perkins and his mob of students. Our band of original Freedom Riders was moved to tears by the welcome they received; many had simply not realised how important their youthful journey had been.
I joined them in Kempsey, where I have never been more proud of the University and of its students, past and present. In a packed pavilion at the showgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people told their stories of life before, during, and after the 1965 Freedom Ride. It was a profoundly moving experience.
The forum was followed by a concert — one of four held across the journey. Local performers warmed up the crowd before Troy Cassar-Daley and Paul Kelly gave their all. And we shouted the words and danced up a storm!
The sheer joy of that evening will stay with me. But it is the personal recollections recounted that day that resonate the most.
It is with great pride that I see that stories from and about the students’ trip have, through social and mainstream media, reached more than seven million people. Such awareness is exactly what the original Freedom Riders set out to create and it is a word we intend to spread as far and wide as we can. We will continue to reach out to the communities we visited and more, and keep going on this journey.
As Paul Kelly sings, “From little things, big things grow”. I hope to see you on March 20!
