Walgett- Moree

15th February, 1965

A big thank you to everyone who came down to the local R.S.L in Walgett on the 13th February and had their say in the protest for equal rights. 

Targeting the local R.S.L attracted a very large crowd of people. I didn't think that that many people lived in a little, dry town like this. This big crowd led to public arguments, cars being stopped on in the middle of the road, people screaming at each other and rotten food being thrown towards us.  At the end of it we were covered in rotten food, and this was quite confronting for me.

I had an opportunity to talk to the vice-president of the Walgett Returned Service League Club yesterday, and at the time he was happy to listen as I explained the purpose of our trip around New South Wales.  He responded to us and we managed to capture him on tape saying that 'he would never allow an aboriginal to become a member.' (Collaborating for Indigenous Rights, 2014). He was very racist and didn’t want anything to do with Aboriginals.

It has been interesting to meet people in this town, I have found that most people are happy and willing to help you; however some have been rather rude, abusive and disrespectful.

Yesterday afternoon I had an opportunity to meet a few locals as well as people who had travelled into town.  Interestingly my surveys showed that one person drove for two hours to come down here to help us fight for Aboriginal rights. They said that they saw my blog and want to support us.

Another (man or lady), who was a local knew a lot about the Aboriginals who were living in the area. He/she explained to me how they lived and what they do for a living if they don't have an ongoing full time job.

After a big day yesterday I awoke this morning to something hitting the bus window. It was the local newspaper. I pressed my face up against the glass to see what was on the front page. When I saw it was us and the vice president I quickly ran off the bus and scrambled to get my hands on a copy to read.

The newspaper showed the town’s response to our footage of vice-president of the R.S.L. The town's response to this footage was unique. The locals were shocked when they saw the footage on the news that evening as it showed by their comments and actions just how racist the town actually is. That we had been able to make a statement here through our protest, our interviews and surveys. 

As I returned to the bus I was informed that Gary Williams and several other people have joined our bus, and will be with us for the rest of our trip.  Also joining us, a journalist from the Sunday Morning Herald. I love writing, my goal in life is to become a journalist. I am so happy that I get to work with one for another eight days on this trip.

Late last night we were getting set to leave, we had waited until midnight as the bus driver had visited this town before and knew that people here would most likely follow us out of town.  I suppose when the driver saw the news headlines he was even more certain of this. 

Knowing what the bus driver had thought immediately scared, I was now really unsure about being on this bus and getting out of town, I can remember thinking, who knows what the people here will do, or what their intentions are if they followed us!

I tried to put my thoughts aside and get some sleep…as the bus drove out of town, there were two lights coming towards us that kept slowly getting closer whilst we were driving away from Walgett. I thought that it was just a normal truck that was overtaking us, but as the truck was overtaking us it swerved into the side of the bus pushing us side ways.

People on the bus started to move over to the other side of the bus to see what was happening. The truck hit us again, and again until all four of our wheels are off of the road. By now all of us were shaken up and scared that the bus was going to roll. We stopped and looked at the bus. The sides were all scraped and there were indents under the window.

We couldn’t believe it, luckily the Journalist was getting photos but it was a bit to dark to see the photos properly. She said that it was the gazier's son and he has lived here all of his life and gets angry when he doesn't get what he wants. He must be angry tonight because we won our protest at the R.S.L.

We were all very shaken after this, for the rest of the night the Sunday Morning Herald journalist was busy, gathering as much as she could, she reported this incident to the manager of the local news paper and managed to get full coverage on all of the newspapers.

Despite the events of the night, I am looking forward to being in Moree tomorrow.  Thank you for your ongoing support, we hope to see you again at Moree. Here we will be protesting out the front of the town pool that currently won’t allow Aboriginals people access to the pool. We hope that our protest can change this attitude and provide equal access to the pool for ALL people.

Protesting out side of the R.S.L
(The Guardian, 2015)

References:

the Guardian,. (2015). Latest US news, world news, sports and opinion from the Guardian | theguardian.com | The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com

Charles Perkins and the Freedom Rides,. (2015). Freedom Rides. Retrieved 15 June 2015, from http://perkinsforfreedom.weebly.com/freedom-rides.html

Sydney University Museums News,. (2011). The Wheels of Change. Retrieved 15 June 2015, from http://sydney.edu.au/senate/documents/Students/Freedom_Ride_2.pdf