The 1965 Freedom Riders of Australia

A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners - this programme contains the names of people who have died.

Nearly 60 years ago, a group of university students set out on a bus to challenge the discrimination of Australia’s indigenous people.

Led by Sydney University’s first indigenous undergraduate, Charles Perkins, they toured north-western New South Wales highlighting the public pools, cinemas, theatres and pubs in country towns where Aboriginal people were excluded or segregated from white people.

Darce Cassidy was recording the journey for a radio programme. We hear 19-year-old Brian Aarons demonstrating at a swimming pool in Moree where Aboriginal children were not normally allowed to swim.

He and Gary Williams, an indigenous student, recall the Freedom Ride to Josephine McDermott, including the moment when they made the national news by ordering a beer together in a Bowraville pub.

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(Photo: The 1965 Freedom Riders. Brian Aarons and Gary Williams sit fifth and fourth from the right, one row from the back. Credit: Reproduced with permission of Wendy Watson-Ekstein and Ann Curthoys)