The Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (AAF) was a

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

-based organisation focused on changing the New South Wales

Aborigines Protection Board Aboriginal Protection Board, also known as Aborigines Protection Board, Board for the Protection of Aborigines, Aborigines Welfare Board (and in later sources, incorrectly as Aboriginal Welfare Board), and similar names, refers to a number of hi ...

, the wider issues of wage parity and full citizenship for

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait ...

History

The organisation was founded in 1956 by a group of Aboriginal (including

Pearl Gibbs Pearl Mary (Gambanyi) Gibbs (née Brown) (18 July 1901 – 28 April 1983) was an Indigenous Australian activist, and the most prominent female activist within the Aboriginal movement in the early 20th century. She was a member of the Aborigi ...

, Charles Leon, Ray Peckham, Herbert Stanley "Bert" Groves,PDF
/ref> Grace Bardsley, and

Joyce Clague Joyce Caroline Clague MBE (née Mercy; born 22 July 1938) is an Australian political activist and Yaegl elder. Her activism centers on social change for Indigenous Australians. She was influential in instigating the 1967 Constitutional Referendum ...

) and non-Aboriginal (

Faith Bandler Faith Bandler (27 September 1918 13 February 2015; née Ida Lessing Faith Mussing) was an Australian civil rights activist of South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian heritage. A campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea ...

, Jack Horner, and Len Fox) social activists, with the intention of creating a partnership between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to achieve social justice for Aboriginal people. They saw the need to educate non-Indigenous people about some of the injustices and discrimination suffered by Aboriginal people. Groves was the inaugural president of the association. Charlie Leon's wife Peggy was also a member of the executive. Leon succeeded Groves as president, serving from 1958 to 1967, and in 1969.

Meetings and conferences

The first public meeting was held in

Sydney Town Hall The Sydney Town Hall is a late 19th-century heritage-listed town hall building in the city of Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, Australia, housing the chambers of the Lord Mayor of Sydney, council offices, and venues for meetings an ...

on 29 April 1957, where the AAF launched a petition drafted by

Jessie Street Jessie Mary Grey, Lady Street (née Lillingston; 18 April 1889 – 2 July 1970) was an Australian diplomat, suffragette and campaigner for Indigenous Australian rights, dubbed "Red Jessie" by the media. As Australia's only female delegate to t ...

, an Australian suffragette and committee member of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, calling on the federal government to change the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

to alter certain clauses in it which discriminated against Aboriginal people. A number of other organisations, including

trades unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

and the

Union of Australian Women The Union of Australian Women (UAW) is a left-wing women's organisation concerned with local and international issues regarding women's rights, international peace and equality. The UAW was established in Sydney on 31 July 1950 in New South Wal ...

, affiliated themselves and helped to distribute the petition. Delegates from the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship attended the conference in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

and joined the

Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), founded in Adelaide, South Australia, as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) on 16 February 1958, was a civil rights organisation whic ...

(FCAA) when it was founded in February 1958. It was one of the left-wing Aboriginal affiliates of the FCAA, who became the majority voting bloc in 1962 when the

Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

(NTCAR) joined in 1962. (The others were the Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland) and the

Council for Aboriginal Rights The Council for Aboriginal Rights (CAR) was founded in Melbourne in 1951 in order to improve rights for Indigenous Australians. Although based in the state of Victoria, it was a national organisation and its influence was felt throughout Australi ...

(

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

)). The AAF held its first

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

conference in October 1961, at which a resolution was passed calling for the repeal of the ''

Aborigines Protection Act 1909 The ''Aborigines Protection Act 1909'' was a New South Wales statute that repealed the ''Supply of Liquors to Aborigines Prevention Act 1867'' with the aim of providing for the protection and care of Aboriginal people in New South Wales, Australi ...

'' (NSW) and a campaign launched straight afterwards. The campaign included demonstrating at meetings of the major parties during the March

1962 New South Wales state election The 1962 New South Wales state election was held on 3 March 1962. It was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting and was held on boundaries created at a 1961 redistribution. The election was for all of ...

, and kept up the pressure afterwards, targeting the

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

premier Bob Heffron. In August 1962, Section 9 of the ''Aborigines Protection Act 1909'' was repealed, allowing the consumption of liquor by Aboriginal people.

Other activities

The Fellowship also lobbied for land rights reform, with Leon, who was also a member of the

, developing a plan for the historically Aboriginal area of La Perouse (which was and is the longest-functioning Aboriginal community in Sydney, with Aboriginal people having lived there for thousands of years before colonisation began in 1788). The

NSW Housing Commission Housing NSW, formerly the Housing Commission of New South Wales and before that the New South Wales Housing Board, was an agency of the Department of Communities and Justice that was responsible for the provision and management of public housing s ...

eventually bowed to pressure and built suitable accommodation and an historical and cultural centre for the residents.

Publications

The Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship issued a bulletin from 1960 to 1968, called ''Fellowship: Monthly Bulletin of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship''.

Dissolution

The organisation dissolved in 1969, as other, Aboriginal-run, organisations took over the work that it had been doing, including the

Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs The Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs (FAA), formerly Aboriginal Affairs Association, and nicknamed "the Foundo", was a community organisation for Aboriginal people in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia between 1964 and 1977. It published an occa ...

History

Meetings and conferences

Other activities

Publications

Dissolution

References

Further reading