FIFTY years ago a busload of students from Sydney picked up a group of Aboriginal children in Moree and drove to the swimming pool.
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What happened next changed the town – and Australia – forever.
Now, five decades on, the Freedom Riders are set to drive another bus to Moree to reunite and commemorate those historic events.
Eddie Pitt is one of 12 Moree residents who was on the bus who will attend the 50th anniversary.
He was 14-years-old at the time, but remembers it vividly.
“It was terrifying,” he said. “There was a big crowd at the pool waiting for the bus to arrive – and it was a very hostile crowd.”
Despite the impact the events made upon him, it took years for their significance to become apparent.
“I was in my second year at high school back in ‘65,” he said. “It took 20 years for me to realise that I was part of a truly history-making event.”
Paula Munro was also on the bus that day, but never made it to the pool.
“The bus picked us up from the mission, but when we got to the roundabout my brother Lyall kicked me off,” she said. “He said, ‘there’s gonna be fightin’ now, and you’re not a fighter’.”
Paula, Lyall Munro Jr and Eddie were all at a community meeting held last week to determine the nature of the week’s commemoration.
Mr Munro Jr said it was also important to remember the long history of Aboriginal resistance which predated the Freedom Rides, led by Charles Perkins.
“Charlie strengthened the resistance that was already here,” he said. “We had the first documented black resistance in the world. The American Civil Rights Movement enhanced what was happening a long time before Martin Luther King.
“It is important that this storyline is maintained.”
Council employees, elders, researchers, education and youth workers, and activists attended the meeting to discuss the progress made since 1965 and the work which remains to be done.
“I’m afraid to say that although a lot has changed, a lot hasn’t changed as well,” Mr Munro said.
However, they placed a strong emphasis on holding a positive and inclusive commemoration. Elder Lyall Munro Sr reminded the meeting it was not just the Aboriginal community which faced discrimination, telling the story of a white man who was forced out of town after he married a black woman.
Eddie said Freedom Riders gave the local indigenous community “hope and energy” and that they “owed it” to to one if its leaders, Perkins, to “continue moving forward”.
“Charlie Perkins was one of the most amazing people I ever met,” he said.
“I got to meet him and shake his hand. I didn’t want to wash that hand afterwards,” Eddie said.
“I was in a bus to the Moree pool with Charlie Perkins two times in my life, once in 1965 and the other in 2000 for the 35-year anniversary.
“I had been asked to give a speech and was up all night thinking about what I was going to say. Then, when I saw that welcoming crowd and compared it to the one 35 years ago, it came to me.
“I had to talk about how far we’ve come.”
A CONCERT by Troy Cassar-Daley and Paul Kelly and an exhibition featuring photos of the event will be among the highlights of a week of commemorations for the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides.
The official opening of the Freedom Ride commemorations will begin with a free breakfast at 8.30am in Kirkby Park on Sunday, February 15. It will be followed by a march to the Moree Artesian Aquatic Centre at 9.30am, which will have free entry for children between 10am to 1pm. Adults who march will receive free entry into the pool with non-marching adults to pay normal pool entry fees. A barbecue lunch will be provided.
On the following day the Moree Plains Gallery will open its Freedom Ride in Pictures exhibition, featuring a collection of photos taken by the Tribune Newspaper during the Freedom Ride. The library will display its Freedom Ride materials at 10.30am with morning tea provided.
At 7pm on Tuesday evening the Banquet Hall will be screening ‘The Freedom Ride’.
It will be screening again the following day at 10.30am and 2pm for students and community members at the Moree Secondary College.
St Pius X will hold a big breakfast at 8am to 11am on Thursday with guest speakers from the original ride Zona Moore and Eddie Pitt.
Friday will be a golf day with 7am breakfast and 8.30am shotgun start. A $15 entry fee will cover lunch and the first 100 players receive a commemorative Freedom Ride bucket hat.
Later in the day members of the University of Sydney will be involved in a Freedom Ride recreation tour, which begins at 1pm with a street procession from Dhiiyaan to Moree Town Hall. It will be followed by a community forum to meet some of the original Freedom Riders and a free community concert featuring Troy Cassar-Daley and Paul Kelly.
The commemorations will come to a close on Saturday with a bowls day at the Moree and District Services Club.
For more information contact Kylie Benge at Moree Plains Shie Council on 6757 3222.