'Is this not slavery?' — Jack Patten's opening address to Day of Mourning protests, 1938

It's Australia Day in my country, or Invasion Day as its regarded by most indigenous people. I doubt it will survive as a national holiday. The first backlash to it was in 1938.

I was told about Jack Patten’s now famous 1938 speech by a human rights lawyer friend of mine, Hugh deKretser. Hugh told me that for the 150th anniversary of the First Fleet landing at Sydney Cove, local indigenous tribes refused to wear skins and spears and be a part of the charade. Instead, organisers brought men from Menindee, in far-west New South W…