Clive Andrew Williams (1915–1980) was an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

political activist.

Early life

As a child he was one of the very few aboriginal people to be accepted into Casino Intermediate High School.

Political activism.

During the 1960s Williams became involved with the Tranby Co-operative College for Aborigines at

Glebe A glebe (, also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s)) is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved to the church. ...

, Sydney, where he worked with religious leader William Alfred Clint. During this time Williams was elected as the vice-preside of the Sydney Aborigines Progressive Association. According to the

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

, Williams joined the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, and was an attendee of the annual conferences of the

Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), founded in Adelaide, South Australia, as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) on 16 February 1958, was a civil rights organisation whic ...

(FCAATSI). In 1967 Williams was given a prominent role in the movie '' One Man's Road'' in which he and his wife shared stories of their lives. The movie was produced by the

Commonwealth Film Unit Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under differ ...

. Upon the film's release, Williams discovered that the Australian Department of Territories had been using the movie as propaganda to promote the cultural assimilation of Aboriginal people. Later in life Williams was a member of a council of elders which worked with the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education on matters of Aboriginal recognition, especially the

Bundjalung people The Bundjalung people, also spelled Bunjalung, Badjalang and Bandjalang, are Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of a region from around Grafton, New South Wales, Grafton in northern coastal New South Wales to Beaudesert, Que ...

. Williams died of Myocardial infraction in 1980. After his death, one of his daughters followed in his footsteps and became an aboriginal cultural activist like her father.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Clive 1915 births 1980 deaths Indigenous Australian activists Australian activists Australian film actors People from Casino, New South Wales