Day of Mourning

The Day of Mourning was a day of protest Aboriginal January 26, 1938 the 150th anniversary of British colonization of Australia. This day should be a protest against 150 years inhuman treatment and the seizure of Aboriginal land, which is in contrast to the official Australia Day, which is celebrated by the people of Europe on the same day.

Policy

The protest on this day was the Australian Aborigines League ( AAL) by William Cooper and the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) by Jack Patten organized and carried out. In 1888, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Aboriginal leaders had simply boycotted this Australian holiday. However, they had overlooked in their boycott that the press ignored this form of protest.

The two organizations had sent notes of protest to the governments of Australia and England as well as the parliamentary representation of Aboriginal people in the early 1930s. These were ignored or rejected without reasons; No protest was forwarded to King George V. From these experiences, they were planning an event to celebrate the 150 - year celebration that could ignore neither the media nor the government. This was the plan that was carried out despite several attempts at intimidation by the police of New South Wales on public meetings in that time.

Although the protest notes the APA were rejected, Prime Minister Joseph Lyons met with the leaders of the Day of Mourning on 25 January without other official government and media representatives. Some reporters preferred to despite the desire of Lyon, Pastor Doug Nicholls to report on who was a Australian football sports referee.

Events in 1938

The day began with a march through the streets of Sydney to the Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal people took part. The march began at the town hall of Sydney and there should be the main event of this day, the Day of Mourning Congress, a political meeting to the many leaders of the Aborigines, such as Pearl Gibbs and Margaret Tucker had come. The protesters had originally planned to hold the conference in the city hall, but this was refused, so he in the Hellene in the building of the Cyprus Club - held Australian Hall in Elizabeth Street. The congress was open only to Aboriginal people, of whom about 1,000 were present. This meeting was the first meeting for the massive human and land rights of the Aborigines of Australia.

The APA and the AAL distributed at the meeting a manifesto Aborigines Claim Citizens Rights, which was drafted by Patten and William Fergusen. This manifesto began with the words: "This festival of 150 years' so - called ' progress' in Australia commemorates 150 years of misery and thus degradation imposed on the original native Inhabitants by white invaders of this country " (This 150 - year celebration, the so-called progress in commemoration of Australia, 150 years of misery and humiliation of the Aborigines by the white invaders ).

At the congress, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

" WE, Representing THE ABORIGINAL OF AUSTRALIA, assembled in Conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th anniversary of the whitemen 's seizure of our country, hereby MAKE PROTEST against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen in the past 150 years, aND WE APPEAL to the Australian nation to make new laws for the education and care of Aboriginal people, and for a new policy whichwill raise our people to FULL CITIZEN STATUS and EQUALITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY. "

( WE represent THE ABORIGINAL OF AUSTRALIA, gathered at the conference in the Australia Hall in Sydney on 26 January 1938. This is the 150th anniversary of the seizure of our country and we PROTEST THIS WAY against the inhuman treatment of our people by the whites in the aND WE URGE perform last 150 years to the Australian nation new laws for the education and welfare of the Aborigines and a new policy that the FULL HUMAN RIGHTS and EQUALITY iN THE COMMUNITY gives our peoples. )

Official ceremony

The government of New South Wales had planned on Australia Day to repeat the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson with the participation of Aboriginal people. The political organizations of the Aborigines in Sydney had refused to participate in the official ceremony. The government then brought a group of Aborigines from a reservation in the west of the country to Sydney. The men stayed in Polizeibarracken in Redfern on Australia Day and they were brought to the beach in Farm Cove, where they should run along the beach to give the impression that they would flee for fear of the glorious British.

This repetition produced in this form of severe criticism by the protesters, who were forbidden to visit the Aborigines in Redfern. The press in Sydney HOWEVER ignored this fact and suggested focusing more on the fact that the convicts did not occur in this celebration.

Subsequent development

In 1998, a silent march of 400 protesters was to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Day of Mourning performed on the original route and the ten states of the wrong Congress manifesto reaffirmed.

This reissue has been combined with the demand for obtaining the Australian Hall, site of the 1938er Congress. The government of New South Wales had indeed placed a condition, but it allowed all changes except on the facade of the building. The building is now protected in all its parts and added to the Australian National Heritage List.