Jack Patten

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Jack Patten (1904 - 1957) was an Australian Aboriginal leader and activist. He was born at Cummeroogunja Aboriginal Mission and settled at La Perouse in 1928.

Unlike many Aboriginal people at the time, Patten attended high school and became an experienced organiser and public speaker, speaking regularly on Aboriginal rights at the Domain on Sunday afternoons, along with other Aboriginal activists such as Pearl Gibbs and Tom Foster.

Patten and William Fergusen published a manifesto, Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights, organised the 1938 Day of Mourning Protest and led an APA (Aborigines Progressive Association) delegation to meet the Prime Minister.

In the late 1930s, Patten established a short-lived Indigenous publication, the first such Aboriginal-focused publication of its kind, Abo Call. (The term Abo was not considered quite as offensive then as it is today). However, it being the Depression, it folded due to shortage of funds.

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