Past Programs
Race Relations - 2008
Patrick Dodson: peace warrior
08/11/2008
Patrick Dodson is only the second Australian to receive the Sydney Peace Prize, after the former Governor-General Sir William Deane. The inaugural chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation believes open and frank dialogue is the only way to repair the fractured relationship Australia has with its Indigenous people.
We join Aunty Noeline Briggs-Smith, historian and archivist, who's found the lost graves of Aboriginal servicemen in the historic Moree cemetery.
Also in this program, the artist Tony Albert talks about his obsession with the uncollectable - Aboriginalia, or mass-produced Aboriginal kitsch.
Chicka Dixon and the Tent Embassy
18/10/2008
Charles 'Chicka' Dixon is one of the most influential figures in contemporary Aboriginal Australia.
He grew up at Wallaga Lake and Wreck Bay on the New South Wales south coast. At 14, he worked as a labourer on the waterfront at Port Kembla, where his involvement in strike action sparked an interest in politics. He then moved to Sydney, where he became active in trade union circles and took a leading role in the campaign for the 1967 Referendum.
Chicka Dixon was both an instigator and an organiser of the 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy. As one of the few experienced campaigners, he acted as a mentor for a firebrand group of young activists who sought to bring Aboriginal rights issues into the mainstream. His influence helped the tent embassy activists gain direct access to senior government figures and was instrumental in encouraging the media to question the living conditions of Aboriginal Australians.
In 1984 Chicka Dixon was nominated for Aboriginal of the Year in recognition of his contributions to Aboriginal health, community development and culture. He continues to travel the country, lecturing and sharing his wisdom.
Also, a profile of Carly Wallace, a young Aboriginal woman from the Atherton Tablelands, who is set to one day be a leader in Indigenous media.
Ships Of The Desert
20/09/2008
Nazmeena Cummings grew up in an Afghan cameleer family in Central Australia. Her unique nomadic childhood, traveling with the Muslim cameleers, at the beginning of the twentieth century, is captured in this radio feature.
Her father, Fiad Mulladad, traveled with his extended family, delivering supplies to places beyond the train line. She describes a harsh but exotic lifestyle that revolved around the work, the camels and Muslim worship.
They managed up to 50 camels in one camel train, with the camel breeding season causing some problems. The families lived in what was called Ghantown, which was always on the edge of town. Male members of the community would go to the Mosque in Ghantown where they cooked spicy curries that were then distributed amongst the rest of the families.
She also remembers living and working with Aboriginal families, who were employed by the Afghan cameleers. Nazmeena's mother would assist at their births as the local white settlers would not assist the Aboriginal people with medical problems.
Nazmeena told her story to her grand nephew Adrian Shaw, who wrote:
"Ships of the Desert' is probably the most important radio documentary that I will ever produce because it's about my family history. It was a privilege to be able to tell this wonderful story about how the camels and Afghans helped build this country, delivering fences, wool bails and food to people in the bush"
Aunty Sylvia Scott (Ingram)
13/09/2008
Sylvia Scott grew up on the Erambie Mission in Cowra, where the Aboriginal people had a reputation for standing up for their rights as far back as the 1940s. She remembers fondly a childhood with not much money and many mission rules and regulations but one that was full of music and fun. Her father Lochie Ingram was a shearer and good provider for their large family and her mother Louisa Ingram led protests against the mission managers, who at times denied the whole mission population their rations.
Louisa and some of her children are in the iconic photo of the 1938 Aboriginal protest that was held in Sydney while white Australia celebrated its sesquicentenary. Sylvia discusses the fact that they have never been properly identified in the various published versions of this photo. She also talks about the circumstances of her sister Janet going into the Bomaderry Children's home, not being allowed to return for many years. Sylvia tells her colourful life story to her niece Suzy Ingram, who also talks about her own memories of Erambi Mission and the Ingram family.
We also catch up with Development Officer for Indigenous Music in the Northern Territory, Heath Baxter who talks about some exciting new bands and a mentoring system betwen older and younger musicians.
View The Day of Mourning photograph and see information about the people in it. You'll also see photographs of Sylvia Scott and the Erambie Mission in the late 1930s.
Freedom Ride
19/07/2008
In the summer of 1965, a group of Sydney University students led by a young Charles Perkins boarded a bus bound for far north western New South Wales. Their task? To draw national attention to the deeply entrenched racism and segregation that existed in towns like Moree and Walgett. ABC journalist John Cassidy joined the freedom riders as a reporter, embedded with them on the bus. He produced a fly-on-the-wall documentary which, at the time, the ABC declined to broadcast.
Produced by John Cassidy
Writing black - and red
14/06/2008
We present a talk by two award-winning female Aboriginal writers. Gayle Kennedy is from the Wongaibon clan of the Ngiyaampa speaking people of south-western New South Wales and Cherie Dimaline is Metis and Ojibway from Canada.
They talk about writing about Indigenous lives at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Gayle Kennedy won the David Unaipon award for her manuscript which has since been published as Me, Antman and Fleabag which bristles with delicious black humour. Cherie Dimaline's novel Red Rooms won best fiction book at the 2007 Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival and Book Awards and has been described as the 'Native Rosetta stone'.
Also, Gordon Hookey speaks to his confronting and deeply political work at the inaugural Indigenous Art Triennial - and we mark the 20th anniversary of the Barunga Statement, which set out the guiding principles for a treaty.
