The Aboriginal Advancement League was founded in 1957 as the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (VAAL), is the oldest Aboriginal rights organisation in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

still in operation. Its precursor organisations were the Australian Aborigines League and Save the Aborigines Committee, and it was also formerly known as Aborigines Advancement League (Victoria), and just Aborigines Advancement League. The organisation is primarily concerned with Aboriginal welfare issues and the preservation of Aboriginal culture and heritage, and is based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. Its journal is called ''Smoke Signals''.

History

The Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (VAAL) was established in March 1957, partly in response to an enquiry by retired magistrate, Charles McLean, who had been appointed in 1955 to investigate the circumstances of Aboriginal Victorians. McLean was critical of conditions in the

Aboriginal reserve An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th ...

s at

Lake Tyers Lake Tyers Mission, also known as Bung Yarnda, was an Aboriginal mission established in 1863 on the shore of Lake Tyers in Victoria's Gippsland, region as a centralised location for Aboriginal people from around Victoria. History The Lake Tye ...

and

Framlingham Framlingham is a market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Of Anglo-Saxon origin, it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book and was part of Loes Hundred. The parish had a population of 3,342 at the 2011 census and an estimated 4,016 in 20 ...

. McLean recommended that persons of mixed Aboriginal and European descent be removed from the reserves. The people of Lake Tyers objected to this, and the League was formed out of their campaign. The new League drew from two already existing organisations, the Australian Aborigines League, established in 1934 and the Save the Aborigines Committee, established as a response to the

Warburton Ranges controversy Warburton, Warburton Ranges or Milyirrtjarra (in the Ngaanyatjarra dialect) is an Aboriginal Australian community in Western Australia, just to the south of the Gibson Desert and located on the Great Central Road (part of the Outback Way) and ...

in 1956–7. Founding President of the League was

Gordon Bryant Gordon Munro Bryant (3 August 1914 – 14 January 1991) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and represented the Division of Wills in Victoria from 1955 to 1980. He served as Minister for Aboriginal ...

, with

Doris Blackburn Doris Amelia Blackburn (; 18 September 1889 – 12 December 1970) was an Australian social reformer and politician. She served in the House of Representatives from 1946 to 1949, the second woman after Enid Lyons to do so. Blackburn was a promin ...

as Deputy President, Stan Davey as Secretary and

Douglas Nicholls Sir Douglas Ralph Nicholls (9 December 1906 – 4 June 1988) was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneerin ...

as Field Officer. A national

umbrella organisation An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry-specific) institutions who work together formally to coordinate activities and/or pool resources. In business, political, and other environments, it provides resources and iden ...

, the

Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement 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 ...

(later FCAATSI) was founded in February 1958 in

Adelaide, South Australia Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, but the Aborigines Advancement League of South Australia (AALSA) finally disaffiliated in 1966, because it thought the federal organisation was too centred on

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. (Davey also became secretary of FCAATSI, before moving to

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. Early activities included lobbying for a referendum to change the

Australian constitution The Constitution of Australia (also known as the Commonwealth Constitution) is the fundamental law that governs the political structure of Australia. It is a written constitution, which establishes the country as a Federation of Australia, ...

to allow the

Federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

to legislate on Aboriginal affairs, and an establishing a legal defence fund for

Albert Namatjira Albert Namatjira (; born Elea Namatjira; 28 July 1902 – 8 August 1959) was an Arrernte painter from the MacDonnell Ranges in Central Australia, widely considered one of the most notable Australian artists. As a pioneer of contemporary Indige ...

, after he was charged with supplying liquor to an Aboriginal ward. By 1967 it had moved to being fully controlled by Aboriginal people, with

Bill Onus William Townsend Onus Jnr (15 November 1906 – 10 January 1968) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, designer, and showman, also known for his boomerang-throwing skills. He was father of artist Lin Onus. Early life and educat ...

as the first Aboriginal president. In 1968, the AAL, led by

Bruce McGuinness Bruce Brian McGuinness (17 June 1939 – 5 September 2003) was an Australian Aboriginal activist. He was active in and led the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, and is known for founding and running ''The Koorier'', which was the first Ab ...

and

Bob Maza Robert Lewis Maza (25 November 1939 – 14 May 2000), known as Bob Maza, was an Aboriginal Australian actor, playwright and activist. Early life and education Robert Lewis Maza was born on Palm Island in North Queensland on 25 November 1939, ...

, invited Caribbean activist

Roosevelt Brown Roosevelt Brown Jr. (October 20, 1932 – June 9, 2004) was an American professional football offensive tackle who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants from 1953 to 1965. He played college football for the Morga ...

to give a talk on

Black Power Black power is a list of political slogans, political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for black people. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used in the United States b ...

in Melbourne, causing a media frenzy. The AAL was influenced by the ideas of

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American revolutionary, Islam in the United States, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figur ...

and

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was an American activist who played a major role in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trini ...

. The Australian Black Power movement had emerged in Redfern in Sydney, Fitzroy, Melbourne, and

South Brisbane South Brisbane is an inner southern suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , South Brisbane had a population of 14,292 people. Geography South Brisbane is on the southern bank of the Brisbane River, bounded to the nor ...

, following the " Freedom Ride" led by Charles Perkins in 1965, but this visit brought the term to wider attention. Salaried director

Elizabeth Maud Hoffman Elizabeth Maud Hoffman, née Morgan, also known as Aunty Liz or Yarmauk, (10 March 1927 – 6 April 2009) was an Australian Indigenous rights, Indigenous rights activist and public servant. She co-founded the first Indigenous Woman's Refuge in ...

, who served From 1975 to 1983, was the organisations longest-serving director.

Headquarters

In 1999 the

Victorian government The Victoria State Government, also referred to as the Victorian Government, is the executive government of the Australian state of Victoria. As a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the State Government was first formed in 1851 when Vic ...

completed a $2,790,000 renovation of the League's headquarters in Watt Street, Thornbury. As well as providing a community facility, the building houses a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

and "keeping place" for items of historical, cultural and spiritual importance to Aboriginal people.

Publications

''Smoke Signals'' was the official magazine of the AAL, Published since 1957,PDF
/ref> Copies were unnumbered until April 1960, when Volume 1, Issue 1. Three issues per year were published until August 1963, after which it was published quarterly. The first editor Stan Davey, with Gordon Bryant following Davey as editor when he left to work for FCAATSI. The newspaper was especially focused on educating non-Indigenous Australians about the activities of the VAAL, as well as the social and economic conditions in which

Aboriginal Victorians Aboriginal Victorians, the Aboriginal Australians of Victoria, Australia, occupied the land for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement. Aboriginal people have lived a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering an ...

lived. While some sources report that ''Smoke Signals'' ceased publication in 1972,PDF
/ref> library catalogues and

Museums Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation that includes a number of museums and related bodies in Melbourne. These include Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks, IMAX Melbourne, a research institute, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Roy ...

show that it went on being published occasionally until at least 2011. and possibly longer. there is no mention of the journal on the website.

Current activities

The League provides a number of services to

Koorie Koori (also spelt koorie, goori or goorie) is a demonym for Aboriginal Australians from a region that approximately corresponds to southern New South Wales and Victoria. The word derives from the Indigenous language Awabakal. For some people ...

people, including family support, food assistance, home visits, advocacy, counselling and educational programs, drug and alcohol awareness and funeral services. It also has a Cultural Unit that provides information and speakers for schools.ourcommunity.com.au – Directory of Organisations

References

External links

* {{Authority control Organisations serving Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australian politics History of Indigenous Australians 1957 establishments in Australia Organisations based in Melbourne