Student Action For Aborigines

23/2/1965
Bowraville

This morning we arrived in Bowraville at 11:30am.  We were greeted by some women from an aboriginal welfare committee, saying that there is no discrimination in this town, which we found out later to be wrong.  Some of us went out to the nearby reserve which was in a terrible condition, it had no manager, so the 26 year old houses hadn't been looked after in 15 year.  After speaking to some of the aborigines in the overcrowded houses we found their biggest concern was the lack of job opportunities, Bowraville didn't have many jobs - any that were available went to the white people.  We also learnt of segregation in the pubs, cafes and even instances at the school.  By far the worst discrimination we heard of today was that the Bowraville picture theatre was partitioned, so the aboriginal people couldn't sit with the whites.  The aboriginal people also had to buy their tickets separately and could only enter through a back entrance when the film had started.  They also had to sit on hard wooden fold-out chairs and had to tilt their head back to see the screen, whereas the whites got the nice comfy seats with a good view.  It appeared to me that the aboriginal population and the white population were almost completely separate.  When we got back to town we tried to confront the manager of the picture theatre but he shut the door on us.  We decided we would picket the theatre later.  The crowd outside the theatre wasn't as hostile as some of the other places but they still didn't want to do anything to help the aboriginal people.  We finished picketing at 9pm and left to Kempsey.

Bowraville Picture Theatre

Posted by Aiden Foy at 22:00

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