By-laws prohibited Aboriginal people from going to pubs or clubs or the swimming baths in Moree, and they were not allowed to walk on the sidewalk or play football in the local team.

The bus travelled to number of towns where racial discrimination had been identified with the aim of highlighting the inequalities and raising the profile of this issue amongst the broader Australian community.

The activities of the Student Action for Aborigines group at Moree drew the attention of the public to the informal and institutional racial segregation practised at that time in outback towns in New South Wales.

The events at Moree also highlighted the failures at both state and federal levels; while both spoke rhetoric of inclusion into the wider Australian society, Aboriginal people in country towns were still being excluded from sharing basic facilities.

The constitutional amendment provided the legal basis for subsequent Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, and also led to increased recognition of the importance of Indigenous rights in Australia.

In 1945 the international community, in its attempts to provide peace and security in a world traumatised by the social and economic disruption of total war, agreed to recognise the political aspirations of, and to promote self-government in, colonised countries.

[3] In 1960 the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan responded to the Sharpeville massacre in Cape Town by delivering his "Winds of Change" speech to the South African Parliament.

In response to the mass protests and arrests in Birmingham, Alabama, the American President, John Kennedy, introduced a Civil Rights Bill to Congress in 1963.

This organisation drew people from many of the political, religious and recreational clubs in the University and it had an Aboriginal student, Charles Perkins, as Chairman.

His Eastern Arrernte mother, recognising there were limited educational opportunities in Alice Springs, took up an offer for him to go to St Francis House, an Anglican home for boys of mixed Aboriginal and other descent in Semaphore South, Adelaide.

They heard talks and produced a reading list about the barriers facing Aboriginal people in outback New South Wales to help them prepare themselves for the trip.

He gained further insight into racial prejudice and segregation in some of the towns when he was invited to join a light plane tour through New South Wales with a journalist, Craig Williams, and the Reverend Ted Noffs, who had agreed to help the students design their survey.

Its first stop was Wellington where the students conducted surveys and investigations, highlighting social injustices and uncovering evidence of racial discrimination.

Aboriginal people who participated in pickets were bitter at the ongoing discrimination they experienced in their town and they continued to protest and agitate for desegregation in the establishments that still upheld a colour ban after the protestors left.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Mirror newspapers as well as TV and radio now began to report on the next stage of the Freedom Ride in Moree.

In addition, a local councillor, alderman Bob Brown, had repeatedly tried to get the council to allow Aborigines to use the baths, but to no avail - he could not even get a seconder for his motion.

Following an emergency council meeting, the mayor arrived and ordered the manager to re-open the pool and enforce the by-law providing for segregation of the baths.

[22] On returning to Moree, the Freedom Riders again collected a number of Aboriginal children from the mission to gain admittance into the swimming pool.

[24][2] A breakthrough came when the mayor of Moree, Bill Lloyd, came down to the baths and informed the students and the crowd that he was prepared to sign a motion to rescind the 1955 by-law.

[25][2] The Freedom Riders continued their journey, visiting the coastal towns in northern New South Wales to undertake their surveys and highlight instances of racial discrimination.

[26][2] The reports and photos in the major newspapers of the events at Moree shocked many white Australians, making them aware of the plight of Aboriginal people.

[27] By drawing attention to both informal and officially sanctioned segregation and racial discrimination, the Freedom Ride helped to show that governmental rhetoric, that Aboriginal people should share in the benefits and opportunities of Australians generally, was not being applied in practice.

[2] The Freedom Riders highlighted the fact that, contrary to government policy, segregation and discrimination were endemic in many of the rural towns of New South Wales.

[2] By highlighting endemic racism in Australia, the Freedom Ride contributed to the passage of the 1967 referendum, which altered the constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people.

[2] In 1965 student protest actions at the Moree baths highlighted the racial discrimination and segregation experienced by Aboriginal people in Australian rural towns and the outback and forced the broader Australia community to look at the way it treated its Indigenous population.

That change provided a legal basis for subsequent Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and an increased recognition at local, state, and national levels of the importance of Indigenous rights in Australia.

[2] The events that occurred at the Moree baths in 1965 also have a special association with the life and works of the Aboriginal activist Dr Charles Nelson Perrurle Perkins AO.

From that change came a legal basis for subsequent Commonwealth involvement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and an increased recognition at local, state, and national levels of the importance of Indigenous rights in Australia.

The events that occurred in Moree, and the wider Freedom ride, established Charles Perkins as an iconic figure for both young and older Aboriginal people alike.

[2] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Moree Baths and Swimming Pool, entry number 106098 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 13 October 2018.