Pearl Gibbs

Pearl Gibbs ( * 1901, † 1983 in Dubbo ) was an Australian Aboriginal activist and prominent activist in the movement of Aboriginal people in the early 20th century. She was a member of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), and participated in various protests such as the Day of Mourning in 1938.

Gibbs was born in 1901 near Botany Bay, Sydney, but grew up near the town of Yass. She attended racially segregated schools in Yass and Cowra. She later married an English sailor, with the had a daughter and two sons; they separated later and Gibbs cared alone for the children.

1930 Gibbs helped to lead a camp that unemployed Aboriginal people of the working class supported and 1933 she organized a strike of Aborigines who worked as a pea - pickers. She was one of the first members of the APA and attracted a large number of listeners when they made ​​speeches in Sydney. It began with the APA President Jack Patten and William Ferguson cooperate to the Secretary: In 1938 she was involved in the organization of the Day of Mourning protests, which was the most important demonstration for the rights of Aborigines in Australia at that time. She was spokesperson for the Committee for Aboriginal Citizen Rights, the lobby group, which continued the work of the Day of Mourning Congresses. In 1938, she was succeeded by Ferguson as secretary of the APA, a position she retained until 1940.

1941 Gibbs was the first female Aboriginal radiating from a radio broadcast. The transmitter was 2WL in Wollongong. My contribution was written about the civil rights of Aboriginal and gently so that it would be allowed to send it. Much earlier work by Gibbs was created in a time when the movement of Aboriginal people was under supervision, because they had no Exemption of relevant Protection Board. In 1993 the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation published (ASIO) their files via Gibbs and gave it to the National Archives of Australia. The file contains a list of political meetings in which Gibbs took part and newspaper clippings of articles in which it was mentioned.

Gibbs spent most of her adult life in Dubbo. 1946 they built and Ferguson a branch of the Australian Aborigines ' League in Dubbo, where she was the vice-president and later secretary of the branch in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1960, Gibbs a hostel for the family members of patients with Aboriginal ancestry of the hospital in Dubbo. From 1954 to 1957 Gibbs was the only member of the Aborigines Welfare Board of New South Wales Aboriginal descent, besides, she was the only woman who ever belonged to this Board. Together with Faith Bandler she founded in 1956 the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship ( AAF), which was primarily an urban organization, with white, who sympathized with their affairs, supported the cooperation between political groups of Aboriginal people. Gibbs reached that the AAF developed relationships with unions in New South Wales.

Gibbs continued her political activity continued in the 1970s, where they supported the establishment of the Tent Embassy. She initiated important connections between the movement of Aboriginal people and other progressive political groups, especially with the women's movement.