“Guiding the Wobbly Hand of Justice”: The Early Years of the Council for Aboriginal Rights, c. 1951–55

The Council for Aboriginal Rights (CAR) was formed in Melbourne in 1951 in response to strikes by Indigenous workers in Darwin for better wages and conditions. Representing a significant shift in Aboriginal rights advocacy, from labour strike to public organisation, CAR lobbied government, gathered and disseminated information, and built a network of activists. This paper focusses on the formative years of CAR, as a pivotal organisation that bridged strike action and left-wing politics, humanitarianism, feminism and anti-colonialism. Using the seven primary goals of CAR’s constitution as a starting point to identify key themes and approaches to advocacy, this paper concludes that CAR took a broadly educative approach to labour reform that recognised the complexity of Indigenous disadvantage and the importance of increasing public awareness. CAR served as an important intersecting point for sympathetic groups and individuals who came together to create a political environment of support for Indigenous people, laying crucial groundwork for the success of the 1967 referendum.