Given the higher profile given to indigenous issues from the seventies onwards, it’s hard to imagine a time where Aboriginal and Islander people and the issues surrounding their situation were almost totally ignored.
Thinking back, the most likely contact between my early teenage universe and Indigenous Australia was probably an occasional family on an Aitkenvale via Alice Street bus or in the congregation at the local Anglican church. Even there we’re talking probably and suspected possibility rather than actual recollection.
If readers have difficulty getting their heads around this, remember this was well before the 1967 Referendum (27 May 1967) when Aboriginal activism, such as it was, came in the form of organisations like OPAL (One People of Australia League founded in 1961) and student activists from the University of Sydney were carrying out the first Freedom Rides in rural New South Wales.
It was the height of the Killoran era in the state Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, and the vast majority of the state’s indigenous people were tucked away on reserves and missions, out of sight and definitely out of mind as far as the general population was concerned.
I plan to explore indigenous issues much more thoroughly, but let’s divert for a moment to consider this Aitkenvale Reserve.
As the reader may have gathered, kids living in suburban Aitkenvale knew it was there. We knew what it was, but it wasn’t exactly clear what it was for.
It was, believe it or not, a transit hostel for Aboriginal people moving between settlements, and presumably those who needed to leave a settlement for medical or dental treatment or for legal matters such as court cases.
Pause and re-read that last statement, remembering the Reserve dates back as far back as 1954. Ten years later it was still right on the very edge of suburban Townsville. The people who used the facility would have travelled by train from north, south or west or ferry from the Palms, yet the facilities to accommodate them were located well away from the gaze of the white community, a definite case of out of sight, out of mind, and something that needs a much more thorough examination, which will be found in The Black North.
Next...