Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 4. 22 March 1972

Aboriginal Rights Campaigner Monday 27 8pm

Aboriginal Rights Campaigner Monday 27 8pm

Bobbi Sykes spent many years organising and gathering information in the numerous black communities in Northern Queensland before finally realising the futility of working for local improvements to a system that oppresses blacks on a nationwide scale. She has written many articles on the black question for various journals and newspapers including Identity, The Review and Women's Weekly.

At present she is engaged in touring various areas, gathering information, speaking, organising and participating in protests against racism and the oppression of blacks in Australia. She is also writing a novel concerning the condition of black people in Northern Queensland at the time of white penetration of the area.

Recently, Bobbi's most [unclear: importan] work has been the organisation of a national Lionel Brockman Defence Campaign. Lionel Brockman is a black man who was forced to steal to feed his starving family. The police spent $50,000 chasing him and his family around the Western Australian desert and upon being captured, he was sentenced to 3½ years in jail. Bobbi played a key role in organising the big protests over the Brockman issue in Melbourne and Adelaide, and has toured Western Australia organising blacks in support of Brockman.

Over the past few months she has been involved in numerous black protests, including the widely publicised setting up of an "Aboriginal Embassy" in tents opposite Parliament House, Canberra.