Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows interviews with Indigenous activists Joyce Clague, Charles (Chicka) Dixon and others, who discuss the services the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs provided for Indigenous Australians, particularly those who had just moved to Sydney, and how they raised the funds for the organisation. The footage begins with a 1960s interview with Chicka Dixon on the 'ghetto-like’ accommodation for Indigenous people in Sydney and includes footage showing Foundation workers, social events and newspaper clippings.

Educational value points

• The Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, established in 1963 in Sydney, agitated for political and social change and supported Aboriginal people – particularly young rural people moving to Sydney. The main forms of support were accommodation, employment, legal and financial advice and medical assistance.

• In 1964 the Foundation launched a Christmas door knocking appeal, as seen in this clip, to help buy a building in George Street, Sydney. The appeal raised £80,000 and the New South Wales government donated £10,000. After this massive fundraising effort the Foundation was able to buy a building and provide meeting rooms, a gymnasium, counselling services, adult education, a hostel and short-term accommodation.

• This clip highlights the dedication and organised activism of members of the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, not only in their provision of services to Indigenous Australians in Sydney but also in their persistence and motivation in fundraising. Without government funding, the Foundation had to raise its own funds, for example by targeting mainstream organisations such as Rotary and Apex, by doorknocking and by organising dances.

• Dr Charlie Perkins (1936–2000), the first Indigenous Australian university graduate, was the manager of the Foundation from 1965 to 1969. Perkins was a well-respected pioneer in Indigenous political leadership and activism. In 1967 he joined the federal public service, eventually becoming the first Indigenous head of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

• In 1965 Charlie Perkins led a group of university students on a Freedom Ride through NSW regional towns. This was designed to focus attention on the appalling conditions being endured by Aboriginal Australians in NSW country towns and to highlight the contemporary segregation and racial discrimination.

• During the 1920s and 30s, Indigenous people moved from rural missions to Sydney, particularly Redfern, in search of cheap accommodation and work on the railways. By the 1960s this area, once the land of the Gadigal people, became a focal point for Indigenous political activism. In 1973 Redfern was the first urban land-rights hand-back in Australia, which partially resulted in the Indigenous population tripling between 1967 and 1981.

• The living conditions in the inner city of Sydney in the 1960s were substandard. Suburbs such as Redfern housed working class, migrant and Indigenous people near heavy industry, factories and warehouses. The housing stock was largely dilapidated or consisted of high- and low-rise housing commission flats. Aboriginal Australians, in particular, were subjected to evictions and widespread racial discrimination from owners unwilling to rent houses to them.

• Charles (Chicka) Dixon (1928–), worked as a young man on the Sydney wharves, campaigned for the 'Yes’ vote for the 1967 referendum, co-founded the Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972, worked to establish the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service and was the first Aboriginal person to be appointed a Councillor on the Australia Council. In 1983 he was named the first Aboriginal Australian of the Year.

This clip starts approximately 10 minutes into the documentary.

The footage begins with a 1960s interview with Chicka Dixon on the 'ghetto-like’ accommodation for Indigenous people in Sydney and includes footage showing Foundation workers, social events and newspaper clippings. Joyce Clague and others are also interviewed.

Charles ‘Chicka’ Dixon Now, when we cannot give the Aboriginal youth accommodation here, they are forced into ghetto-type dwellings in Redfern, Waterloo, Newtown, Alexandria, really congested areas where we have Aborigines living perhaps 15 and 20 to a room.
Joyce Clague The Foundation had emergency bedding and things of that nature, even if it meant that some people had to sleep on the floor. They would more than welcome whatever form of assistance we would be able to give them.
Woman Government funding was pretty scarce in those days. There was no other organisation around delivering any kind of service to Aboriginal people. That’s why they had to do some fundraising. If a Koori got off a train, they’d give them a ticket, and there was a cafe just down three or four doors down where they’d get a meal.
Man Slice of toast and a couple of eggs and a cup of tea. That’s all it was, you know. And Alan, we’d give them the meal ticket to go down, and then Alan’s Cafe would send the bill to them at the end of the week and we’d have the Sunday night concerts, charge on the door to pay for the meal tickets that you’d given out during the week, you know.
Woman First it was just a shop for the functions and then after a while Charlie opened up a restaurant. You know, a little cafe-type thing.
Joyce We raised our own wages. We raised our own fund for resources and stuff that we had to do. The donations, of course, we received, that was going towards the building.
Charles We’d write stereotype letters to Apex, Rotary, right, to be their guest speaker, and the trick was to solicit funds. I’d say, ‘We need your help’, after I explained what we were doing. ‘We need donations, not necessarily cash.’ But I meant cash. Because we had to find our own wages. $30 a week, we were getting.
Joyce We used to go three at a time and do doorknocks. Of course, there were some who were pretty hostile, weren’t going to give to blacks any rate and told you so, and slammed the door in your face. I mean, we had that. And, uh, just had to go to the next door. Just didn’t let that dwell and dampen your enthusiasm on trying to raise money for this cause.