| Charles Perkins | |
|---|---|
Charles Perkins, University of Sydney, approx 1965, as first Aboriginal Australian to graduate from an Australian University. |
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| Born | c.1936/1937 Official date – 16 June 1936[1] Alice Springs, Northern Territory |
| Died | 19 October 2000 (aged 64) Sydney, New South Wales |
| Cause of death | Renal failure |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Other names | Charlie Perkins, Kumantjayi Perkins |
| Ethnicity | Aboriginal Australian – Arrernte and Kalkadoon |
| Education | Bachelor of Arts |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney |
| Known for | Activism, Public Service, Sport |
| Spouse | Eileen Munchenberg |
| Children | Hetti, Rachel and Adam |
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Charles Nelson Perkins | ||
| Date of birth | 16 June 1936 | ||
| Place of birth | Australia | ||
| Date of death | 19 October 2000 | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1950 | Port Thistle | ? | |
| 1954–1955 | International United | ? | |
| 1956–1957 | Fiorentina | ? | |
| 1957 | Budapest | ? | |
| 1957 | Everton | 0 | (0) |
| 1957–1959 | Bishop Auckland | ? | |
| 1959–1960 | Adelaide Croatia | ? | |
| 1961–1964 | Pan-Hellenic | ? | |
| ?-1969 | Bankstown | ? | |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1959–1960 | Adelaide Croatia | ||
| 1961–1964 | Pan-Hellenic | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 15 December 2008. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Charles Nelson Perkins, AO,[2] commonly known as Charlie Perkins,(born c.1936/1937,[3] in Alice Springs, Northern Territory — died 19 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales) was an Australian Aboriginal activist, football (soccer) player and administrator. He was known as Kumantjayi Perkins in the period immediately following his death. Kumantjayi is a name used to refer to a deceased person in Arrernte culture.[4]
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Charles Perkins was born to an Arrernte woman and a Kalkadoon man and had 11 brothers and sisters. Perkins was a cousin of artist and soccer player John Moriarty. He married Eileen Munchenberg on 23 September 1961 and had two daughters (Hetti and Rachel) and one son (Adam).[5]
He was educated at St Mary's Church School in Alice Springs, St Francis College for Aboriginal Boys in Adelaide, the Metropolitan Business College, Sydney and the University of Sydney from where he graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts, being the first Indigenous Australian to graduate from university. While at university he worked part-time for the City of South Sydney cleaning toilets.[6]
Perkins worked as an apprentice fitter and turner for the British Tube Mills company in Adelaide between 1952 and 1957.[5]
In 1965 he was one of the key members of the Freedom Ride – a bus tour through New South Wales by activists protesting discrimination against Aboriginal people in small town Australia. This action was inspired by the US Civil Rights Freedom Ride campaign in 1961. The Australian Freedom Ride aimed to expose discrepancies in living, education and health conditions among the Aboriginal population. The tour targeted rural towns such as Walgett, Moree, and Kempsey. They acted to publicise acts of blatant discrimination. This was demonstrated through one of the Freedom Ride activities in Walgett. A local RSL club refused entry to Aborigines, including those who were ex-servicemen who participated in the two World Wars. The bus at one stage was run off the road.
On 20 February 1965, Perkins and his party tried to enter the swimming pool at Moree, where the local council had barred Aboriginal people from swimming for 40 years since it had been opened. In response to this action the riders faced physical opposition from several hundred local white Australians, including community leaders, and were pelted with eggs and tomatoes. These events were broadcast across Australia, and under pressure from public opinion, the council eventually reversed the ban on Aboriginal swimmers. The Freedom Ride then moved on, but on the way out they were followed by a line of cars, one of which collided with the rear of their bus forcing them to return to Moree where they found that the council had reneged on their previous decision. The Freedom Riders protested again forcing the council to again remove the ban.[7]
In 1967 a referendum was held on constitutional amendments to allow inclusion of Aboriginal people in censuses and giving the Parliament of Australia the right to introduce legislation specifically for Aboriginal people. In the lead up to the referendum Perkins was manager of the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, an organization that took a key role in advocating a Yes vote. The constitutional amendment passed with the Yes vote accounting for 90.77% of the vote.
In 1969 Perkins began his career as a public servant as a Senior Research Officer with the Office of Aboriginal Affairs. In 1972, as a public servant, he was suspended for alleged improper conduct after he called the Liberal – Country Coalition government in Western Australia 'racist and redneck'.
In 1981 he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the first Aboriginal to become a permanent head of a federal government department. He served as Chairman of the Aboriginal Development Commission between 1981 and 1984. Throughout his career he was a strident critic of Australian Government's policies on indigenous affairs and was renowned for his fiery comments. Prime Minister Bob Hawke once said of Perkins that he "sometimes found it difficult to observe the constraints usually imposed on permanent heads of departments because he had a burning passion for advancing the interests of his people". Perkins served as Secretary until 1988.
In 1989 became Chair of the Arrernte Council of Central Australia.
In 1993 Perkins was elected commissioner of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission for an area of the central Northern Territory. In 1994 he was elected Deputy Chairperson of ATSIC.
Perkins on 7 April 2000 in reference to the impending Sydney Olympic Games, suggested that 'Sydney will burn during the Olympics.' The comment sparked outrage from many quarters.[8] In May 2000 Perkins declared that the Australian Football League and the Australian Rugby League were racist, suggesting that the AFL "acts in a racist manner at the highest level."[9]
Perkins began playing in 1950 with Adelaide team Port Thistle. In 1951 he was selected for a South Australia under 18 representative team. He went on to play for a number of teams in Adelaide including International United (1954–55), Budapest (1956–57) and Fiorentina (1957).
In 1957 he was invited to trial with English first division team Liverpool FC. Perkins ended up trialling and training with Liverpool's city rival Everton FC. While at Everton Perkins had a physical confrontation with the Everton reserve grade manager after being called a "kangaroo bastard." After this incident Perkins left Liverpool to move to Wigan where he worked as a coal miner at the Mosley Common Colliery alongside Great Britain rugby league player Terry O'Grady. Perkins played two seasons for leading English amateur team Bishop Auckland F.C. between 1957 and 1959. Perkins in mid-1959 decided to return to Australia after trialling with Manchester United.[5]
On returning to Australia Perkins was appointed captain/coach of Adelaide Croatia. At Croatia he played alongside notable Aboriginal figures Gordon Briscoe and John Moriarty.[6][10]
In 1961 when Perkins moved to Sydney to study at university he played with Pan-Hellenic (later known as Sydney Olympic FC) in the New South Wales State League where he became captain/coach. He later played for Bankstown and retired in 1965.
He later served as president of former National Soccer League team Canberra City. He was appointed Australian Soccer Federation (a forerunner of the Football Federation Australia) vice-president in 1987 and was the chairman of the Australian Indoor Soccer Federation (later known as the Australian Futsal Federation) for ten years until his death in Sydney in 2000.[6][7]
Perkins was awarded Jaycees Young Man of the Year in 1966, NAIDOC Aboriginal of the Year in 1993 and an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1987.[2] Perkins was inducted into the Football Federation Australia Football Hall of Fame for services as a player, coach and administrator in 2000. In 1998 Perkins was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Western Sydney. Shortly before his death he was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by the University of Sydney. Perkins was named by the National Trust of Australia as one of Australia's Living National Treasures.
In 2001 The Dr Charles Perkins AO Memorial Oration and Dr Charles Perkins AO Memorial Prize were established in his honour by the University of Sydney. In 2009 The Charlie Perkins trust instituted two scholarships per year to allow indigenous Australians to study for up to three years at the University of Oxford.[11][12][13][14]
Freedom Ride is part of a four-episode documentary by Rachel Perkins and Ned Lander. It tells a chapter of Charles Perkins' life. The Freedom Ride was a bus load of concerned white and black people, most of them university students, who visited several towns in rural and outback Australia to escalate the level of public awareness about the level of racial intolerance in Australia.[16]
This film by Ivan Sen uses archival footage from early 1960s to 2001 and builds an intimate and honest portrait of Perkins life bound inexorably with the most dramatic political shifts in Australian Indigenous policy.[17]
2009 Charlie Perkins memorial oration, Professor Briscoe recalls Perkins' fight for equality and liberty.
Perkins died in October 2000 of renal failure. During the 1970s Perkins had had a kidney transplant and at the time of his death was the longest post-transplant survivor in Australia.[5][18]