Australian Aborigines' League

The Australian Aborigines' League was established in Melbourne, Australia, in 1933 by William Cooper and others, including Margaret Tucker, Eric Onus, Anna and Caleb Morgan, and Shadrach James[1] (son of Thomas Shadrach James and brother-in-law of Cooper[2]).

In a letter to the editor of The West Australian, Cooper wrote "The plea of our league is a fair deal for the dark race".

[5] In 1938 it joined the New South Wales-based Aborigines Progressive Association in staging a Day of Mourning on Australia Day (26 January) in Sydney to draw attention to the treatment of Aborigines and to demand full citizenship and equal rights.

Scientists have studied us and written books about us as though we were some strange curiosities, but they have not prevented us from contracting tuberculosis and other diseases, which have wiped us out in thousands".

[2] The League was less active after Cooper's death in 1941 but was revived after the Second World War by Douglas Nicholls and by Eric and Bill Onus.