AustLit

'In February 1965 a group of young people, all but one members of Sydney University's Student Action for Aborigines, set off on a tour of a dozen New South Wales towns selected as places where Aborigines were notoriously ill-treated or segregated. The students' purposes were to conduct a sociological survey of conditions, and, where necessary, to hold demonstrations against particular examples of segregation. By the end of a fortnight, Australia's press was covering the daily confrontations, Charles Perkins was a national figure and conditions in rural towns were the subject of urgent debate amongst white citizens and administrators of Aboriginal affairs. Perhaps most important, young Koories in the towns had seen what was possible to achieve by demonstrations and publicity. Today the Freedom Ride is well known as an event, but little is known about the details. Perkins' autobiography A bastard like me is still the only published eye-witness account readily available.' (Introduction)