Charles Perkins made a radical activist leader by 1950s Adelaide; also gave him soccer and Eileen Munchenberg
Charles Perkins never refrained from criticising government policy, even as head of the federal Aboriginal affairs department from 1981.
Image courtesy KooriWeb.org
Charles Perkins, famous for his 1965 freedom ride, his work for the Yes campaign in the 1967 referendum, and as an outspoken head of the federal Aboriginal affairs department, had his fire for Aboriginal rights stoked by his early years in Adelaide.
Born in 1936 in the old Alice Springs telegraph station to an Aboriginal mother and a European father, Perkins was a member of the Stolen Generation because his mother Hetti, who had 10 other children, couldn’t refused an offer by Anglican priest Percy Smith to take him at age 10 to St Francis Anglican House for Aboriginal Boys in Adelaide to have, in Perkins’ words, “the colour washed out of me”.
The education at St Francis was basic but it introduced Perkins to his first love: soccer.
At 15, he became an apprentice fitter and turner at British Tube Mills but he was experiencing racism. He was once rejected Port Adelaide Town Hall dance by every woman because: “We don't dance with blacks”. That experience scarred him but he sustained confidence and self-respect through his soccer brilliance.
Starting with the Port Thistle soccer club, Perkins became a South Australian under-18 state player and one of Australia’s best. Liverpool club Everton recruited him in 1957-59 but homesickness caused him to overlook an offer from Manchester United to return to captain/coach Adelaide Croatia and play alongside notable Aboriginal figures Gordon Briscoe and John Moriaty. Perkins’ experience of a more tolerant racial climate in England had left its mark made him consider a life devoted to the Aboriginal cause.
At a soccer dance in 1961, Perkins met Eileen Munchenberg from a German Lutheran family who welcomed him and the couple married that year. Eileen submerged her own ambitions for higher education and worked part-time to supplement the family income when Perkins, lured to Sydney by a soccer offer, entered Sydney University and became the first Aboriginal tertiary graduate in 1966. Eileen would give Perkins stable life-long support (and three children) during his career in the public service and activism in the Aboriginal cause.
In 1965, Perkins was a key member of the freedom ride bus tour through New South Wales protesting discrimination against Aboriginal people in small towns such as Moree, Kempsey and Walgett where an Returned Servicemen's League club refused entry to Aboriginals, including ex-servicemen. Also in 1965, Perkins helped student demonstrators in “kidnapping” Nancy Prasad, a seven-year-old Fijian-Indian, to prevent her being deported. This changed the admission of non-Europeans to Australia.
Perkins was manager of the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs with a vital role in advocating a Yes vote in the 1967 referendum. In 1969, Perkins became research officer with the Office of Aboriginal Affairs but was suspended after he called the Liberal-Country coalition government in Western Australia “racist and redneck”.
He became permanent secretary of the Aboriginal affairs department in 1981, the first Aboriginal permanent head of a federal government department. He served as chairman of the Aboriginal Development Commission 1981-84. He remained a strident critic of Australian government policies on indigenous affairs.
