ABSTRACT
On 15 February 1965, a ragged line of some thirty students from the University of Sydney found themselves outside the Returned Servicemen's League (RSL) club in the tiny dusty town of Walgett, in far north-west New South Wales (I was one of them – oh, so long ago!). They were protesting against the refusal of the club to allow membership or entry to Aboriginal people (locally the Murris), including ex-servicemen. In the hot sun, from noon to 7 p.m., the students, only one of them – Charles Perkins – Aboriginal though not from that part of the country, held up placards saying ‘Acceptance, Not Segregation’, ‘End Colour Bar’, ‘Bullets did not Discriminate’, ‘Walgett – Australia's Disgrace’, ‘Why Whites Only?’, ‘Educate the Whites’, and ‘Good Enough for Tobruk – why not Walgett RSL?’ Local townspeople, black and white, soon gathered, remarking on this strange event, some jeering, many just watching. Never before, almost certainly, had people held up placards of protest in Walgett, and definitely not outside the RSL Club. From time to time heated three-cornered discussions broke out, between Murris, white townsfolk and students. The atmosphere was very excited, the levels of hostility high. Later that evening, when the students left town, the bus was forced off the road by a truck driven by some angry young white men. This violence brought the student protest to national media attention the next day, attention which stayed focused on it for the rest of its two-week tour against racial discrimination in country towns. 1
