Australian Bicentenary 1988

Australian State and Federal governments named the festivities around the Bicentenary of the invasion of Australia on 26 January 1788 by the British the 'Celebration of a nation'. Various communities took a dissenting view, notably many Indigenous groups who united on 26 January 1988 to stage the largest Indigenous protest in the history of colonised Australia. This took the form of a peaceful march of 100 000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Sydney. It was part of a history of Indigenous observation of this day inaugurated by the 1938 Day of Mourning. As the Indigenous poet and campaigner Oodgeroo Noonuccal asked at the time of the Bicentennial, 'from the Aboriginal point of view, what is there to celebrate?'. In 1987, Oodgeroo returned her MBE in protest against the upcoming 1988 Bicentennial celebrations.

Related People

• Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 - 1993)

  Oodgeroo Nunuccal [Kath Walker] returned her MBE in protest against the upcoming Australian Bicentenary Celebrations

  [1987 - ]

Books

• Harris, Alana, Australia's too old to celebrate birthdays (Galarrwuy Yunupingu 1988), Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1988, 30 pp. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Foley, G. et al, 'The year of mourning', in Jack Davis et al (ed.), Paperbark : a collection of black Australian writings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Qld., 1990, pp. 330-342. [ Details... ]
• Stell, M. K. and Thompson, R., 'January', in Anderson, K. (ed.), Australians, 1988, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Willoughby, N.S.W., 1989. [ Details... ]

Newspaper Articles

• Ingrid Svendsen, 'Black Protests Will Be Peaceful: Foley', Sydney Morning Herald, 26th November. [ Details... ]
• Seth Mydans, 'Aborigines Cast a Shadow Over Australia’s Party', New York Times [USA], 26 January, p. 2. [ Details... ]

Online Resources

• Foley, Gary, 'The Sydney Morning Herald and Representation of the 1988 Bicentennial', in Gary Foley's Koori History Website, Foley, Gary, Kooriweb, 1997, http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_11.html. [ Details... ]

See also

• Fraser, Bryce, The Macquarie encyclopedia of Australian events, Macquarie Library, North Ryde, N.S.W., 1997, 760 pp. [ Details... ]
• Horner, J. and Langton, M., 'The Day of Mourning', in Gammage, B. and Spearrit, P. (eds), Australians 1938, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, N.S.W., 1987. [ Details... ]
• Horton, David (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture, Aboriginal Studies Press for AIATSIS, Canberra, 1994, 2 v. (xxxiii, 1340 p.) pp. [ Details... ]
• Oodgeroo Nunuccal, 'Why I am now Oodgeroo Noonuccal', Age, 30 December, p. 11. [ Details... ]
• Roberts, Greg, 'Poet swaps name in protest', Sydney Morning Herald, 16 December. [ Details... ]
• Sally McCausland, Art and the Olympics, Arts Law Centre of Australia, http://artslaw.com.au/reference/artolymp994/. [ Details... ]