Day of Mourning (Australia)

Their lobbying played a key role in the development of the New Deal for Aborigines, announced by McEwen later in 1938, which set out a pathway to full citizenship rights for Indigenous people contingent on cultural assimilation.

The APA ultimately split into rival factions later in 1938 but the Day of Mourning participants continued to play a significant role in rights activism.

The Day of Mourning protest was organised by the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), based in New South Wales and led by its founders Jack Patten and William Ferguson.

In early January 1938, a statement titled "Citizen Rights for Aborigines" was published by Patten and Ferguson in William Miles' nationalist magazine The Publicist.

Patten called for "ordinary rights and full equality with other Australians", also denouncing white supremacy and the "slavery under which our people live in the outback districts".

A 1987 review of the Day of Mourning by Aboriginal writers Jack Horner and Marcia Langton concluded that it was "a powerful symbol, but [...] brought about little change".

In response, Lyons noted that section 51(xxvi) of the constitution would need to be amended to bring the changes about and McEwen promised to convene a conference of state ministers to discuss the matter.

[10] An APA delegation also met with George Gollan, a minister without portfolio in the New South Wales state government who had an interest in Indigenous policy.

Gollan advised New South Wales premier Bertram Stevens that the Board for the Protection of Aborigines should be reorganised along the lines envisaged by the APA.

[10] In February 1938, following the meeting in Sydney, McEwen secured the approval of federal cabinet to develop an official government policy on Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory.

He announced the New Deal for Aborigines in December 1938, a landmark policy statement (released as a white paper in February 1939) which provided a pathway to full citizenship rights for Indigenous people consequent on a process of cultural assimilation.

[14] Initially steps towards its implementation included the creation of a Native Affairs branch within the Department of the Interior, based in Darwin, and the abolition of the post of Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory.

[16] In April 1938, The Australian Abo Call was launched as a national newspaper for Aboriginal readers, with Patten as editor continuing to publicise the issues and policy agenda raised at the Day of Mourning.

[17] The unity between Aboriginal rights groups and their leaders displayed at the Day of Mourning was relatively short-lived, with an internal split developing in the APA between followers of Ferguson and Patten.