1965
Walgett
It is Tuesday today
and we are off to Walgett. We left Gulargambone at around four pm and are due
in Walgett at about seven 0’clock. I am actually quite scared to turn up, they
say it is quite a racist town but I know this is for a good cause and know that
it works because of the outcome Martin Luther King jnr. received with his
freedom ride. I read most of the way but we arrived at ten to seven. On the way
to the hall one of the aborigine boys from South Australia taught us how to
throw a boomerang, I had a go and quite enjoyed it. Once we had completed
setting up in the hall we went for a swim and watched the boys vs a few local
aboriginal boys at some basketball matches.
We woke up at seven
thirty at least it felt like seven thirty and heard over the radio that we have
planned to strike against the RSL at twelve. We were all quite taken that the
news had gotten out so we had a meeting and all agreed to accept the cops
demands and also decided that anyone acting violently would be instantly
suspended then the group would have a meeting to decide weather that person
would go home or not. We went to Namoi River Settlement the next day to do a
few surveys. The majority of people I talked to were shy, to themselves and
withdrawn but yet still said they were happy. The living conditions were quite
shocking. There were jammed tin sheds with mud floors and we had to use mucky
water. The feeling we got from the town was that aborigines were not
acknowledged in the white peoples social ladder, we particularly got that
feeling from the RSL, the Oasis hotel and the Frock shop. We have a long ride
ahead of us.
Yeah, I was so scared as we were entering Walgett too, Charles Perkins told me that it was the most racist town that we were going to on this trip. But I was also really excited because I didn't know how the locals would react and wanted to see if we could change them to believe that this country should be desgregated.
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