William Cooper and the first Day of Mourning

Did you know that in NSW, 26 January was commemorated as the "Day of Mourning" before it was called "Australia Day"? (Ok, caveat - it was celebrated as "Anniversary Day" in NSW before it became “Australia Day”. But still, you might be surprised by the long history of the Day of Mourning.) William Cooper was an Aboriginal man born in Yorta Yorta country on 18 December 1860. At 24, William was the last of his siblings to become a Christian. After going to church one Sunday, he told the pastor, "I must give my heart to God." William read widely and quickly became an activist for his people. He spent most of life working on missions and campaigning for land rights, citizenship and Indigenous representation in parliament. In 1933 he helped establish the Australian Aborigines League.   Then on 26 January in 1938 - when non-Indigenous Australians were celebrating the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet, with a re-enactment of the landing, complete with Aboriginal resistance – The Australian Aborigines League (VIC) and the Aborigines Progressive Association (NSW) joined together to hold the first “Day of Mourning”. It was also the first interstate protest by Aboriginal people.  In a letter to the Prime Minister in the same year, William Cooper wrote:  When we learn of [the king’s instructions to ensure that Aborigines and their descendants be properly cared for], and know the history of the manner in which we have been treated these last 150 years, our confidence in the professed Christian nation — standing for good government justice, and freedom — is sadly shaken. … Will you, by your apathy tacitly admit that you don’t care, and thus assume the guilt of your fathers? ... OR — are you prepared to admit that, since the Creator said in his Word that all men are of “one blood”, we are humans with feelings like yourselves in the eyes of Almighty God, that we have joys and our sorrows, our likes and our dislikes, that we can feel pain, degradation, and humiliation just as you do? If you admit that, will you like true men do your bit to see a great injustice at least mollified by agitating for us to get a fair deal before it is too late? (In case you're wondering, the "one blood" reference is from Acts 17:26. Though modern translations use "from one man".)  Out of the Day of Mourning, came ‘Aboriginal Sunday’, when churches used the Sunday before 26 January to remember the unjust treatment of Aboriginal people. Eventually it was moved to the first Sunday in July and later became NAIDOC.

Australia Day for people here Many of you may be wondering what Indigenous people in the Top End think about Australia Day. But I’m sorry to say that I have no idea. As far as I can tell things like Australia Day and even NAIDOC week are largely ignored, or even unknown, by non-urban Aboriginal people. On Australia Day I saw Aboriginal people at church and in our street, but no one was concerned about Australia Day. Those at church are mainly people from remote communities that are in Darwin for some reason or another (medical facilities, shopping, football, alcohol etc), and who come to church looking for a decent meal. They don’t own calendars or watch the news. The kids that I saw in my street have grown up in Darwin, but they didn’t seem to have any awareness of Australia Day controversies either.  But William Cooper was in a unique position. He learned to read, and he read widely, finding out all he could about his people’s rights. Then he used his education to fight for those rights.  Pray for wisdom for our government, and everyone involved in making policies and coordinating programs for Indigenous Australians.