John Maynard Abstract Australian sport and its sporting heroes are foundations of the nation's history. The Aboriginal place in Australia's sporting history is one of triumph and disappointment. This chapter presents an overview of Aboriginal sporting experiences and a focus on the life and times of a largely forgotten sporting hero Wally McArthur. Sadly, Australia of the 1940s and 1950s was not a country that embraced an Aboriginal sporting star no matter how talented or hard he strived. Wally McArthur would never be given the support or space to enter the national imagination. The story here sets to rectify that long injustice.

Writing in the aftermath of World War I, Marcus Garvey argued, “Never before in the history of the world has the spirit of unrest swept over as it has during the past two years”. He declared the era “the age of unrest, the age of dissatisfaction”. In Australia there emerged a vibrant pan-Aboriginal political movement, typified by Fred Maynard’s Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, intent on demanding Aboriginal rights to land, opposing the government’s removal policy, defending an Indigenous cultural identity, demanding citizenship rights, and calling for self-determination and autonomy over Aboriginal affairs. This chapter examines Aboriginal political protest during this time of global upheaval, and examines the long-forgotten influence of Garveyism and the United Negro Improvement Association in the genesis of Aboriginal political mobilization during the 1920s.

Abstract Aboriginal involvement in World War I is at once complex and full of contradictions. During the Great War, many Aboriginal people and communities were keen to enlist and supportive of the war effort while others spoke out against conscription and the war. It is important to trace Aboriginal voices both during and after the war to comprehend what Aboriginal people had to say about the conflict. This article seeks to provide answers to some of these tantalising issues, and snapshots of the Aboriginal WWI experience. These complex stories will fill gaps in the mythic Australian First World War narrative.

On the Political “Warpath”Native Americans and Australian Aborigines after the First World War John Maynard (bio) In the wake of the First World War, Indigenous peoples in the United States and Australia joined a global push by those on the margins for self-determination, justice, and equality. This article focuses on and discusses two organizations that formed during this turbulent global time period: the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) in Australia and the Mission Indian Federation (MIF) in the United States. A comparison of the two organizations reveals the strategies they employed in their fight for land, for citizenship, for the protection of their children, and for the mobilization of non-Indigenous support. Both organizations faced powerful government opposition in both countries. I confess that this article is not intended to be a theoretical interpretation of the two groups but is more about restoring a history that is important today for Indigenous people and communities. I derived inspiration from such missing histories of organized political resistance. Both the AAPA and MIF remain very much unknown within the historical literature. In Australia the AAPA and its impact on Aboriginal politics continue to be overlooked by many studies, and the organization remains virtually unknown outside of Australia. The MIF in the United States is similarly relatively unknown and overlooked. I intend to reveal here the impact these groups had at the time and the pan-Indigenous national agenda that both groups strongly endorsed. In both the United States and Australia, Indigenous men returned home from the Great War with shifted perceptions of the world and [End Page 48] their place in it. Gaining acceptance back home within a wider community riddled with deep-seated racism, prejudice, and oppression was a devastating negative reality. Indigenous people in both countries recognized with many others globally that the war itself and its aftermath had caused a seismic shift in global and colonial power structures, and the time was ripe to raise a voice and demand social, political, and economic change.1 In the aftermath of the First World War, Indigenous men and women in both Australia and North America organized political platforms based on Western models but grounded in Indigenous cultural frameworks of doing business. In Australia three organizations formed during the 1920s: the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) in Sydney, New South Wales (N.S.W.), in 1924; the Native Union in Perth, Western Australia, in 1926; and the Australian Aborigines Association in South Australia in 1927. The Native Union and Australian Aborigines Association both focused on local and regional issues and had relatively short terms of organized activity. The AAPA, the biggest organization of the period, instigated a national pan-Aboriginal focus, demanding “enough land for each and every Aboriginal family in the country.” International events and Marcus Garvey’s “Black Nationalist” political ideology greatly influenced and inspired this group. In N.S.W. the catalyst for the establishment of the AAPA in the 1920s was increased government action revoking Aboriginal landholdings and the acceleration of tearing Aboriginal children away from their families by the N.S.W. Aborigines Protection Board.2 In the United States literally dozens of Indian organizations sprang up in the early decades of the twentieth century, some small, some big, some short-lived, and some that battled for Indian rights for decades. Some groups largely focused on local and regional issues, while others mobilized with a national pan-Indian focus in mind. Some of the more prominent included the Navajo Chapters, the Native American Church, the Society of American Indians, the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, the Californian Brotherhood, the Grand Council Fire of Chicago, the Indian Defense League of America, and the Mission Indian Federation (MIF). Of these many Indian groups I will examine here the MIF, founded in 1919 in California. This organization had a similar platform, motivations, and strategies to those of the AAPA in Australia. Like the AAPA, the MIF recognized the importance of directing its energy toward defending and mobilizing Indigenous support at the grassroots level and encouraging a united pan-Indigenous national agenda. The MIF insisted: “The control of the Indians will be in their own hands, by their electing a...

This exhibition was an outstanding and timely recognition of the 1965 Freedom Ride. It is now 50 years since Charles Perkins and a group of non-Indigenous students from the University of Sydney too...

There remains much mystery, misconception and myth surrounding the history of Aboriginal involvement with the South African Anglo-Boer War (hereafter Boer War).Unquestionably, Aboriginal men did go to South Africa and play a part, but the numbers, identity and background of these men remains sketchy.The war in South Africa remains itself somewhat the forgotten war.Jim Davidson has reflected that its memory 'slipped from public consciousness relatively quickly … Collective Memory of the Boer War was soon swamped by the Great War'. 1 In this study I reflect on some of the known and unknown stories and experiences of Aboriginal people during the Boer War.What were the living circumstances of Aboriginal people in Australia leading up to and during the Boer War and did this have any impact?Did Aboriginal people and communities support the war in South Africa?What do we know of the Aboriginal men that went to South Africa?Why were they there?How did they get there and did they get home?Whilst acknowledging the lack of archival sources, 2 I will address or reveal some of the complexities of these issues through this article.I wish to acknowledge the groundbreaking work and perseverance of a number of scholars and amateur enthusiasts including Dale Kerwin, Philippa Scarlett, Colin Renshaw, Bill Woolmore and Peter Bakker amongst others who have conducted work over many years trying to piece together the largely fragmented and previously missing place of Aboriginal people associated with the war 1 Davidson 2015: 25. 2 'The relative paucity and diffusion of official Australian records of the war was made worse when many records were lost or deliberately destroyed, not through any fears that official secrets and methods might become known, but because the records concerned seemingly mundane matters relating to a conflict which seemed minor and trivial in the wake of the First World War.'

In this publication to honour Professor Ann Curthoys this article considers the comparative aspects of Native American and Australian Aboriginal political activism in the time period 1900-1930. Central to the study is the importance of revealing the missing chapters of Indigenous political history in both the countries during these important and largely overlooked decades. The approach undertaken is restorative history and privileges the tools of historical narrative (story). The current study places the significance and impact of Indigenous campaigners at the forefront of an awakening awareness of the shared political and racial challenges confronting Indigenous people in the USA and Australia. There were many similar issues confronting both the Indigenous groups. These included the pressures applied on Indigenous land and its resources and the removal of Indigenous children from their families. The article highlights the tactics and voices of Indigenous opposition in fighting courageously for their rights and people.

This paper seeks to aid and open further discussion on the impact upon Aboriginal communities and lives during and after World War One. We now know that over a thousand Aboriginal men enlisted and went overseas to fight for their so-called country during the Great War and that many made the ultimate sacrifice. But what was happening at home to their families and communities whilst they were away? Did they receive just recognition on their return home? These are some of the questions this paper will reveal and analyse.

John Ramsland has had a long, fruitful and much respected relationship with local Aboriginal people and communities of the Hunter Valley and North Coast. Recently his close working relationship wit...

In saying that, I am not attempting a theoretical analysis of Haslam's work here but rather I offer an introductory biographical overview of the man by those that knew him intimately in the hope of stimulating further questions

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to reveal a missing chapter of Australian Aboriginal history. Jack Johnson is known as the first black Heavyweight Champion of the world but little is known of his inspiration to many oppressed groups around the globe including Aboriginal Australia. Johnson was flamboyant, outspoken and deeply proud of his heritage.Design/methodology/approach - This chapter is undertaken as restorative history and examines the interconnected international networks of cultural exchange operational in the early decades of the twentieth century. It privileges the tools of historical narrative (story) as a major method, and is based largely on historical newspapers sources'. Press coverage can provide fascinating insight into historical characters and can deliver their voice and thoughts at the time, and newspapers remain important in forming public opinion.Findings - Jack Johnson would become one of many influences from the international Black Diaspora upon Aboriginal Australia across the twentieth century.Originality/value - John Maynard's work on Jack Johnson (Maynard, J. (2003). Vision, Voice and Influence - The rise of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association. Australian Historical Studies, 121(April), 91-105, 2005, 2007) and more recently Theresa Runstedtler's study (2012) has uncovered transnational links of Jack Johnson to many oppressed groups globally including Aboriginal Australia. This current study places Johnson's impact upon Aboriginal Australia at the forefront of a shift and awakening awareness of Aboriginal Australians of their global political and racial challenges.

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