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Bain Attwood, ‘A sense of kin’ The Life of William Cooper

William Cooper was a pioneering Indigenous activist, notable for his famous petition to King George VI for an Aboriginal representative in the Australian parliament, his call for a day of mourning after 150 years of colonisation, the walk-off of the Yorta Yorta people from Cummeragunja reserve in 1939, and his opposition to the establishment of an Aboriginal regiment in the Second World War. In his later years Cooper wrote several letters lobbying for change from Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who was then preoccupied in directing Australia’s war-effort. While Cooper achieved only limited cut-through during his lifetime, he laid the foundation for many to follow in his footsteps.

In this week’s episode of the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer discusses William Cooper with the author of An Aboriginal Life Story Professor Bain Attwood.

Bain Attwood is Professor of History at Monash University and has held fellowships at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. Bain Attwood has published extensively in the history of colonialism. His sole authored books include The Making of the Aborigines (1989), Rights for Aborigines (2003), Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History (2005), Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History (2009), Empire and the Making of Native Title: Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People (2020), and William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story (2021). He is jointly responsible for Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League (2004) and The 1967 Referendum: Race, Power and the Australian Constitution (2007).