Brenda Palma:

"It seemed to galvanise people, the whole spirit of it, both black and white. It was this band of people coming together, very bravely, at this 150th anniversary of the invasion - white invasion - they were having floats going along George Street and there were thousands of people in the street. And alongside of that there was this organising body with John Patten, was it William Foster? not sure ... and William Ferguson, of course, and William Cooper. And they were organising this national conference to be held on the same day. And they asked to get permission to have it. They wanted to have it in the lower Town Hall, but they weren't allowed to do it there. Finally they found this hall which was - belonged to the Catholic Church. It was called Australia Hall, which I think is very significant. And they had delegates from the Eastern states. And they got telegrams and letters sent from Perth and Darwin and so on. So there were 100 people. And they all got up and made speeches - there were quite a few historic speeches were made. And they put forward this 10 point plan of the demands they wanted of things changed; which when you look at it today not much has actually changed. It was the first time that the Aboriginal people had united from different tribes and different regions and come together as one voice. And they - it was in the Abo Call - they got this newspaper going so it was published and sent out to all the different areas. So it was quite a, sort of a, strong movement towards civil rights. But then, of course, the war broke out and I think that interrupted a lot of it."