Australian Aborigines Conference (APA), Day of Mourning

Australian Aborigines Conference (APA), Day of Mourning. The APA with Jack Patten as President and Bill Ferguson as Organising Secretary declare 26 January, 1938, the 150th anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, a Day of Mourning and Protest. They call a conference at The Australian Hall in Elizabeth St, Sydney. They invite only Aborigines and Persons of Aboriginal Blood to attend. The Conference moves the resolution: “We, representing THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA, assembled in Conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th Anniversary of the whitemen’s seizure of our country, HEREBY MAKE PROTEST against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen during the past 150 years, AND WE APPEAL to the Australian Nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, and we ask for a new policy which will raise our people to FULL CITIZEN STATUS and EQUALITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY.”