What Impact Did Rudd Have On The Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement

Aboriginal leaders were one of the key and vital parts of the development of the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement. Without those Aboriginals or anyone fighting for aboriginal rights wouldn't have had anyone to follow, anyone to inspire them to push for what was really right. The main points of this essay will be the impact that the leaders Charles Perkins, Paul Keating, Eddie Mabo and Kevin Rudd had on the aboriginal civil rights movement and how their involvement the Aboriginal civil rights movement wouldn't have made the same changes it did.

In 1965 Charles Perkins who was the first Aboriginal to graduate from an Australian University led the Freedom Ride. This was known as one of the many significant events in the Australian Civil Rights

The speech was made as the prime minister had some concerns about the daily challenges that the Indigenous people had to tackle. It was made to capture the harsh truths about Australian history, and to use them as a beginning for building trust in the government’s motives among Indigenous Australians. The speech was created not only to help those Indigenous to help the civil rights movement but also to challenge what it would be like if those average white Australians experienced such injustices. It had been an historical event because it was the first time an Australian Prime minister had widely spoken about Indigenous discriminations that they have or had been experiencing. “Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional life. We bought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion." These words were some they never thought would come out of an Australian prime ministers mouth. It was a general development on the track to resolution by recognizing the Australians past and changing the Australia civil rights movement for the

Eddie had a strong passion for his hometown that drove the proud Torres Strait Islander to then undertake a 10-year legal battle, which rewrote Australians history for the better. During 1982 Eddie Mabo led the Indigenous people of Mer Island. As a troop, their main argument was to clarify that many generation of the Meriam people had lived on the island, when then was even prior to the arrival of all Europeans. They all believed that they were the first and traditional owners of the land. Terra Nullius was another one of there arguments even though the Europeans had taken charge and claimed it in 1770. Eddie had died just a few months after the High Court decided to hand down the decision, which he had spent 10 years fighting for. "For two centuries, the British and then white Australians operated under a fallacy, that somehow Aboriginal people did not exist or have land rights before the first settlers arrived in 1788." Struggling for a say, when Eddie came along the Indigenous Australians were able to have a say and take back what they felt was originally