The 1988 Bicentenary Australia Day celebrations in Sydney were marked by a huge and well-organised gathering and protest march by the Aboriginal community, many of whom had travelled to Sydney from all over the country.
Significant numbers of the non-Aboriginal people joined the gathered Aboriginals to create a crowd of around 40,000 people who marched from Redfern Oval to Hyde Park for a public rally. Aboriginal activist Gary Foley commented about the gathering: black and white Australians together in harmony...... this is what we have always said Australia could be.
Many Aborigines who took part in the Bicentennial marches felt they would like to have an alternative celebration of how their history and culture had survived. The first Survival concert, held in 1992, really began from those early concepts and reflected a major shift away from the traditionally-named Australia Day to Invasion Day.
The Survival Concerts, now one of the biggest Aboriginal cultural events of the year, have been entirely initiated and coordinated by the Aboriginal community. La Perouse hosted the concerts for many years. This, the first place of European contact, has also had continuous Aboriginal occupation for thousands of years before 1788 and played a crucial role in the coming together of the Aboriginal community for the huge 1988 march.
Regionally across New South Wales, an increasing number of Indigenous communities are participating in their local Australia/Survival Day ceremonies and celebrations. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags are raised alongside the Australian flag. High profile Aboriginal people take the role of key-note speakers for the Australia Day Council, as well as local Australia Day Committees.
In 2000, more than 250,000 Sydney-siders marched across the Harbour Bridge to demonstrate their support for Reconciliation. Their message was that we begin to reconcile the past by walking and talking together.
This same spirit is seen in the Sea of Hands (www.antar.org.au/). Over 250,000 people have signed their name to plastic hands, which are displayed to show their support for Native Title and Reconciliation.
In 2003 the Australia Day Council of NSW, in partnership with the Cadigal people, held the Woggan-ma-gule, Farm Cove Morning Ceremony. It is a Shark Dreaming site for the Cadigal people where land and water meet.
(For more information on Indigenous Australians' relationship to Australia Day, go to www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/indigenous.aspx)