Charles+Perkins

CHARLES PERKINS



"﻿ The flying gravel, the tomatoes, the rotten eggs, the punches, the spit and the shouted threats”. These were just some of Charles Perkins’ of his campaign for his people.



Perkins was born in 1936 on a police-patrolled Aboriginal Reserve in Alice springs. His mother was Arente, and his father was Kalkadoon. He had eleven brothers and sisters. Throughout his childhood he suffered. As an aboriginal with a white grandfather, he was a quarter-caste.He was treated as a second class citizen and was racially discriminated by both whites and other aboriginals.

At ten years old he was taken over 1,500 kilometres across the country to a boy’s home in Adelaide, to ‘have the colour washed out of him’. Although his mother sent him there to get a good education, he didn’t really have any guidance or support, and in fact, he did quite poorly at school.

But one thing did excel at, was soccer and this gave him one of the greatest opportunities of his life. In his early twenties he travelled to England a played with Everton in 1957. But soon he got sick of the dreary weather, so, in 1960, he returned to Australia.But Perkins time in England changed him. While he was there he experienced, for the first time in his life, acceptance. He wasn’t judged on his appearance, but for what he could do.

On his return to Australia he enrolled at Sydney University in a Bachelor of Arts and in 1965 became the first Aboriginal ever to graduate from University. During his time at university he was quite politically active. He and a friend wanted to find a way to publicise the Aboriginal cause, which led to the formation of a group called Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA). The Freedom Ride was one of the best things that SAFA did. It was a bus tour that went around rural NSW exposing the apartheid like segregation of aboriginals. Thanks to the great press coverage Perkins was able to broadcast how Aboriginals could not try on clothes in a store, how they couldn't sit and eat at a restaurant, get a haircut, or even go to highschool, he was able to expose this racism across the country and bring it to national attention. But Perkins didn’t stop there. Because of his major role in SAFA and the Freedom ride he was propelled through the ranks of Aboriginal Affairs and became first Aborigine to head a government department.

Charles Perkins was a fearless spokesperson, and improved the lives of many Aborigines in Australia. In 1987 he received the Order of Australia, a very prestigous award and in his later years he went back to his heritage and fulfilled his cultural duties with his people, the Arente. Unfortunately, Charles died of a kidney failure on October 19 2000. He was a great man who worked relentlessly for justice and equality for Indigenous Australians.



//**Gillian B**//