William Ferguson (Australian Aboriginal leader)

William (Bill) Ferguson ( born July 24, 1882 in Waddai, Darling Point, New South Wales, Australia, † January 4, 1950 in Dubbo, New South Wales ) was a political leader of the Aboriginal people, trade unionists and civil rights activists.

Early life

Ferguson was the second of seven children of sheep shearer William Ferguson and his wife Emily, who died of puerperal fever in 1895. He received his education at Warangesda Mission School, from 1896 worked as a shearer, postman and workers in the Riverina region. On February 18, 1911, he married Margaret Mathieson Gowans and they lived in Santigo at Narrandera. In 1916 he settled and 1933 in Dubbo with his family in Gulargambone.

Political life

Politically active, he has been as a trade unionist of the shearer in the Australian Workers ' Union. Later he was secretary of a local party structure of the Australian Labor Party (ALP ).

In 1937, he was the founder of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) in Dubbo. With William Cooper and John Patten and other leading personalities of the Aborigines he organized the Day of Mourning in 1938 - the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet - under the political slogan Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights!. Another five APA conferences he organized from 1938. He was a member of an Aboriginal Welfare Board, the social aspects of Aboriginal devoted himself, when the government decreed that two Aborigines had to be represented in the Board.

In 1949 he supported the Labor government of Ben Chifley as representative of the Australian Aborigines League and initiated several reforms. With the ALP Minister Herbert Johnson, he was different political opinion, resigned from the Labor Party and ran as an independent candidate for Lawson, but received enough votes.

Ferguson suffered during his last speech a heart attack, where he died at Dubbo Base Hospital.