Similarities Between Australia And The American Civil Rights Movement

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After centuries of injustice, both America and Australia were sick of racial inequality and discrimination. The American Civil Rights movement was led by activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and had hundreds of thousands of supporters. Their quest for justice inspired the Aboriginal people of Australia to fight for their own civil rights, a fight which changed Australia forever. Similarities can be drawn between the European invasion of America and the European invasion of Australia and both Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians fought for civil rights. After years of protests, court cases and campaigning both nations are on the road to equality. The civil rights movement in America was like a fireplace that people kept adding wood to before Rosa Parks finally lit it. On a segregated bus on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery Rosa Parks was asked to give her seat up for a white person and refused. She was arrested for the act but her boycott became a martyr of the struggle against segregation. She had been the secretary of a civil …show more content…

However, America and Australia have one big thing in common: ‘colonisation’. The pillaging of tribes, relocation of native people, violence and cultural discrimination and appropriation. The Native Americans or American Indians suffered from the oppression and stripping of land and rights and had to fight hard to get it back. They were placed on reservations and denied a U.S citizenship. They could be sent to jail for practicing their religion and were mocked. It was centuries after colonisation before they could vote, practice religious beliefs and travel. There are still issues surrounding land rights. The Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians share very similar backgrounds. The one advantage Native Americans had was legal recognition about a century prior to the Aboriginal