1940s
1940
In the 1940s Elsa Dixon becomes the first Aboriginal woman to gain her pilot's license.
1941
1942
1943
1944
At the cemetery at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Newtown, is an obelisk erected in tribute to the Aboriginal people buried in the cemetery. It reads ‘Erected by the Ranger’s League of New South Wales at the inspiration of the late Aldwin J. S. Stanton in memory of Mogo, Perry, Tommy and other Aborigines buried in this cemetery, and as a tribute to the whole of the Aboriginal race. Mogo was a Koori from the Upper McCleay River and is buried in what was known as ‘Koori Corner’ of the cemetery, on the Lennox Street side. His grave was originally decorated with shells taken from an Aboriginal midden at Pittwater. The other remains have been identified as belonging to Perry who died in 1849 aged 76. Wandalina, died in 1960, while Tommy has no details. (Hinkson and Harris, p. 91)
1945
1946
Chicka Dixon comes to Sydney from the south coast. He recalls, ‘It was the big thing to come for young Aboriginal people, I was 17. Mum used to tell him, ‘Oh don’t fight with the manager Chicka. He’ll cut off our rations'. Everyone said go to Redfern. Chicka goes on, ‘There were two lots of Blacks living in Sydney then, in La Perouse, the La Pa [La Perouse] people and the Redfern people. The La Pa people were mainly south coast, and Redfern were all the western blackfellas’. According to Plater, ‘there was a half-baked animosity between the two settlements’. Plater, pp. 43, 122-123. (V12, ‘Working life in Redfern’)