Op-Ed

The ‘Freedom Riders’ of Australia

Published

10 years ago

March 2, 2015

By Lekan Oguntoyinbo
NNPA Columnist

One day in late February 1965, an interracial group of 29 university students rode into a small, segregated town looking to make trouble. For in this community, people of color were served last at stores, forced to sit in the front row at theaters and forbidden to swim in public pools or try on apparel at clothing stores.

Their bus voyage was part of a two-week campaign against racism and legal discrimination. The students named their group the “Freedom Riders.” When they arrived in this town, they invited children of different races to swim with them in the public pool – to the great dismay of local White residents.

Days earlier, the students had been run out of another town for protesting outside a club for ex-servicemen that denied membership to veterans of color. Whites pelted them with eggs, shouted insults and fought with them. At least one of the Freedom Riders was knocked to the ground.

These events might sound reminiscent of the 1960 Freedom Riders who desegregated interstate buses in the Deep South, but they actually took place nearly 10,000 miles away in Australia – a nation with a long history of racism and pernicious violence against the dark-skinned indigenous people who’d lived there for more than 40,000 years before Europeans arrived in the late 1700s.

For more than 150 years, European settlers displaced and murdered aborigines and destroyed their communities, often through government-sanctioned policies. Throughout much of the early 20^th Century, indigenous children were forcibly taken from their parents and sent to live with White families, foster homes or boarding schools designed to culturally assimilate them. Many others were forced to live on reservations.

Like Blacks in America, indigenous people were treated as second-class citizens and had limited access to quality housing, jobs and a good education. Before the late 1960s, indigenous people did not have the right to vote and were not even included in the census.

During the middle 1960s, student activists at the University of Sydney – one of Australia’s most prominent higher education institutions – decided to challenge the status quo. Inspired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) – and the interracial group of Freedom Riders who risked their lives to defy Jim Crow laws in the Deep South – the students decided to import this form of civil disobedience popularized around the globe by American civil rights activists into Australia. The University of Sydney student activists’ two-week “freedom ride” gained considerable attention and marked a major turning in race relations in Australia.

Historians say it led to a “yes” vote in a 1967 referendum about whether to include native Australians in the census count. It also raised awareness about racism Down Under and forced the government to take steps to integrate Aborigines into mainstream Australian society, increase access to opportunities and eliminate legal racial discrimination. Of course, the Freedom Rides and the referendum were not a panacea for Australia’s racial problems.

Like Blacks in America, indigenous Australians continue to grapple with the legacy of centuries of racism and oppression. Infant mortality is two and a half times higher among Aborigines. Their unemployment rate is three times higher than that of the general population, they are less likely to complete their schooling, and they comprise 20 percent of the prison population, even though they are less than 5 percent of the population.

But Australia is a nation that is considerably more enlightened about race than it was half a century ago and indigenous people have the same rights as the general population – at least on paper.

Starting this week, much more attention will be focused on the bravery of the “Bloody Sunday” marchers who 50 years ago attempted to trek from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. to protest laws that denied blacks the right to vote. And that is as it should be.

But in celebrating the landmark accomplishments of the marchers in Alabama, this also is an appropriate time to reflect on the impact of the Civil Rights Movement – not just in the United States, but around the world.

This is an appropriate time to reflect on the hope that activists inspired among oppressed racial, ethnic and religious minorities around the world, including Catholics in Northern Ireland, Blacks in Rhodesia, Dalits in India, people of color in South Africa and indigenous people in Australia.

Around the world, much is made of America’s “founding fathers,” a group made up largely of slave owners who balked at entrusting democracy to the masses and who believed voting rights should be the exclusive preserve of property-owning White males.

Maybe we ought to consider spending more time paying homage to the men and women who in the last 60 years pushed America to live up the letter of its constitution – and, in so doing, inspired and helped change the rest of the world.

Lekan Oguntoyinbo is an independent journalist. Email him at oguntoyinbo@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @oguntoyinbo.

###

Reporter II

Posts by Reporter II

Up Next

Dr. King’s Bold Case for Economic Equality

Don't Miss

UN Honors People of African Descent

Reporter II

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post Endorses Barbara Lee

Barbara Lee will be able to unify the city around Oakland’s critical budget and financial issues, since she will walk into the mayor’s office with the support of a super majority of seven city council members — enabling her to achieve much-needed consensus on moving Oakland into a successful future.

Published

2 months ago

April 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo, Office of Rep. Barbara Lee.

Former Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo.

As we end the celebration of Women’s History Month in Oakland, we endorse Barbara Lee, a woman of demonstrated historical significance. In our opinion, she has the best chance of uniting the city and achieving our needs for affordable housing, public safety, and fiscal accountability.

As a former small business owner, Barbara Lee understands how to apply tools needed to revitalize Oakland’s downtown, uptown, and neighborhood businesses.

It is notable that many of those who fought politically on both sides of the recent recall election battles have now laid down their weapons and become brothers and sisters in support of Barbara Lee. The Oakland Post is pleased to join them.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

These community activations were coordinated with the San Francisco-based non-profit program “Room to Read.” Ray said he is also donating his time to read and take pictures with students to encourage their engagement and to inspire them to read more. The inspirational book “Clifford Ray Saves the Day” highlights Clifford Ray’s true story of saving a dolphin.

Published

3 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Blair Underwood (left) and Barbara Lee (right). Courtesy photo.

By Paul Cobb
New Oakland Series
Opinion Part 3

The Post mentioned three weeks ago that a number of our local luminaries were coming together to support the “New Oakland” movement. As this current national administration continues to eliminate our “legacy” institutional policies and programs left and right, most communities find themselves beyond “frozen” in fear.

Well, esteemed actor, long-time Bay Area supporter, and philanthropist Blair Underwood returned to Oakland this week to speak with city leaders, community trust agents, students, the Oakland Post, and local celebrities alike to continue his “New Oakland” initiative.

This week, he kicked off his “Guess Who’s Coming to Read” literacy program in some of Oakland’s middle schools. Clifford Ray, who played the center position of the 1975 World Champion Golden State Warriors, donated close to 1,000 books. Ray’s fellow teammate Charles “The Hopper” Dudley also gave Converse sneakers to students.

Underwood also spent quality time with the Oakland Ballers ownership group and visited the amazing Raimondi Park West Oakland community revitalization site. In the 1996 TV film Soul of the Game, Underwood played the role of the legendary first Black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson and commended the Ballers owners.

“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

Underwood was also inspired by mayoral candidate Barbara Lee’s open-minded invitation to bring public-private partnership opportunities to Oakland.

Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Councilmembers Ramachandran, Kaplan, Unger Identify Funds to Save Oakland Fire Stations

Our budget crisis – one of the worst in Oakland’s history – is compounded by the fact that people do not feel safe coming to Oakland due to our public safety crisis. By investing in our fundamental public safety resources today, we can send a signal to the world that Oakland is open for business. We have such a rich and vibrant culture, arts, and food scene that is worth celebrating – but we can only showcase this if we are able to keep our neighborhoods safe. Having fully functioning fire stations are absolutely essential to these efforts.

Published

3 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Councilmember Janani Ramachandran. Courtesy photo.

By Janani Ramachandran

There is no greater concern to the people of Oakland today than public safety. Fire stations are the bread and butter of essential city services – and every day that we have stations shuttered, we imperil the lives of our community members. In response to widespread outcry over the current and planned closure of stations, myself, along with Councilmembers Kaplan and Unger, have painstakingly worked to identify millions of dollars of new funding to save our stations. The legislation we introduced on Thursday, February 13th, will amend our budget to prevent the closure of four fire stations that are currently on the chopping block due to our budget crisis and will re-open two closed stations that have already been closed – Station 25 and 28 – in the near future. The resolution that will provide the funding to keep our stations open will go before the full City Council for a vote at our meeting on Tuesday, March 4^th at 3:30 PM – and we invite you to join us at City Hall to share your perspective on the topic.

With the devastating Los Angeles fire at the top of people’s minds, terrible memories of Oakland’s own wildfires are re-surfacing from the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm to the Keller fire just a few months ago – and how essential fire stations are to mitigating these catastrophes. But in Oakland, our fire stations don’t just fight wildfires – they also provide emergency medical services to our most vulnerable constituents, put out structural fires and encampment fires, and much more.

We recognize that there are a number of competing interests and important initiatives fighting for sparse City resources. But from my perspective, core safety services are the most pivotal functions that a City must spend its resources on – especially given the outcry we have heard around fire stations.

The fight to save our stations is not over. The resolution we introduced is a critical first step, and there are hurdles to overcome. If you support keeping our fire stations open, we invite you to be a part of the solution by making your voice heard at the March 4^th City Council meeting at 3:30 pm.