Submitted by Paul Daley on
The Aboriginal rights activist’s life ended way too early. But it made a difference to so many others and leaves a legacy as large as he was in life
Bundjalung man Sol Bellear had a dream that became a plan.
He wanted to get a boulder, so big that the authorities couldn’t easily shift it, and put it prominently in Redfern Park. He wanted to affix to the boulder a plaque inscribed with some of the words delivered by former prime minister Paul Keating at that park exactly a quarter of a century ago.
We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
Related: An Aboriginal person is also an activist. We need our own news to stay informed | Sol Bellear
Related: It's 50 years since Indigenous Australians first 'counted'. Why has so little changed?
- Log in to post comments