freedom ride sue lawson essay

Read Freedom Ride Online

Authors: Sue Lawson

Freedom Ride

Author’s Note

About the 1965 Australian Freedom Ride

Freedom Ride Participants

Acknowledgements

Endorsements

Other Books by Sue Lawson

Robbie knows bad things happen in Walgaree. But it’s nothing to do with him.

That’s the way the Aborigines have always been treated. But in the summer of 1965 racial tensions in the town are at boiling point, and something headed Walgaree’s way will blow things apart.

It’s time for Robbie to take a stand. And nothing can ever be the same again. A novel based on true events.

The novel Freedom Ride is historical fiction based on actual events. The confrontation between students and Walgaree residents in the novel is inspired by incidents that occurred during the 1965 Freedom Ride and information gathered by the students. I have merged and altered events and dates to suit the purpose of the story.

Walgaree is a fictional town, cobbled together from many towns throughout not only New South Wales but the entire country.

This novel features expressions and derogatory words that were commonly accepted in 1965. Today these words are accepted for what they are – ignorant, racist and demeaning.

Sunlight reflected off house windows into my eyes and sweat pooled on the top of my undie elastic. The grass on the nature strip drooped, as defeated as me. Ahead, half a block away, the sun-bleached awning over the milk bar door shimmered in the heat. It had to be cooler inside the shop than it was out here, didn’t it?

Stupid heat.

Stupid Nan.

It wasn’t me who finished the milk. Dad had used the last of it and put the empty bottle back in the fridge.

But did I tell Nan that when she thrust coins at me and snapped, “Rectify the situation, Robbie”?

I just scuttled out the back door, right past my bike, towards Wobbly’s milk bar.

Beneath the milk bar awning, I wiped sweat from my face and pushed the door open.

A bell tinkled and the smell of stale air and bread swamped me.

Wobbly stood behind the counter watching Mrs Dixon, the town’s biggest gossip, count coins from her purse.

“How are you, Robbie?” asked Wobbly, looking up.

“I’m well, thanks, Mr Cavendish.” Everybody in Walgaree called Mr Cavendish Wobbly. Except me. Nan said calling him Wobbly was disrespectful.

Mrs Dixon stopping counting coins and squinted at me. “How is Dawn, Robert?”

“Well, thank you, Mrs Dixon.”

Ethel Dixon used to play cards with Nan on Mondays – until she brought packet biscuits for morning tea two weeks in a row. Nan and her “card girls” voted Mrs Dixon out and Thelma Fielding in.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Mrs Dixon. I hurried to the milk refrigerator at the back of the store. In my rush to avoid the old crow, I just about cannoned into an Aborigine waiting by the newspaper rack. She stared at the floor, arms wrapped around her stomach. Her dress was faded and shoes worn. She was too clean to be from the Tip and the Station, the government mission, was the other side of town. She was from the Crossing for sure.

Mrs Dixon finished counting coins and glared at the newspapers. “May I also have The Sydney Morning Herald , Stan?”

Wobbly sighed and limped out from behind the counter. As he took a newspaper from the rack, the Aborigine seemed to fold into herself.

“Anything else?” asked Wobbly, when he returned to the counter.

“That will be all, thank you, Stan.” Mrs Dixon pressed another coin on the counter.

I placed my palms against the glass of the refrigerator and, once the chill had seeped into my bloodstream, opened the door. As I grasped the milk bottle, the bell above the entrance tinkled.

“Barry!” boomed Wobbly. “When did you get back?”

“Hello, Wobbly. Morning, Mrs Dixon,” said the man. “Arrived home last week.” His voice had the usual Walgaree drawl, but something about it reminded me of an ABC newsreader.

“Barry Gregory.” Mrs Dixon clasped her gloved hands in front of her chest. “How is your dear mother coping?” Anyone who didn’t know better would think she actually cared about his mum. “I suppose she’ll sell–”

The man cut her off. “She’s fine, thank you, Mrs Dixon.”

Mrs Dixon’s eyebrows arched towards her silver hairline. Lips all tight, she put the paper and bread into her basket.

“What can I do for you, Barry?” asked Wobbly.

“Out of ciggies.” He glanced around the store. “Sorry.” He smiled at the Aboriginal woman. “You were here first.” He swept his hand from her to the counter. “After you.”

My mouth fell open.

The woman peeked at him from under her eyelashes but didn’t move.

“I insist. Ladies first.”

Mrs Dixon clucked her tongue. “Now, Barry. She can’t be served until you and Robbie have been, isn’t that right, Mr Cavendish?” She didn’t need to spell it out. White people were served before Aborigines in Walgaree, no matter what.

Wobbly stood a little straighter. “That’s right.”

Barry brushed his fringe back from his face. Unlike the rest of the male population of Walgaree, there wasn’t a hint of Brylcreem in his hair and instead of a chequered shirt and trousers, he wore a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. On a weekday.

“You don’t mind waiting, do you, mate?”

I jumped when I realised this Barry bloke was talking to me. Did I care if Wobbly served her first? I was supposed to, but … my shrug was more a twitch than a real movement.

“Good on you, mate,” said Barry. “So, love, after you.”

The Aborigine, eyes fixed on the floor as though the mysteries of the universe were printed across it, didn’t move.

“Go on,” said Barry. “It’s okay.”

Mrs Dixon jerked her head at the woman. “Stan, if you serve her, I’ll take my business elsewhere. And the Catholic Ladies’ Guild will hear all about it.”

Beads of sweat formed on Wobbly’s forehead. “Barry, you’ve made your point, mate.”

“Please.” The Aborigine woman’s voice was a whisper. “I’ll wait.”

Barry sighed. “At least serve the kid before me.”

Wobbly’s breath rushed from him. “Just the milk, Robbie?”

“Yes, thanks.” I stumbled past the black woman to the counter.

Mrs Dixon huffed. As she left the milk bar, the bell above the door shuddered more than tinkled.

Wobbly looked over my shoulder to Barry. “Now, Barry, you know how this town works. Don’t go stirring up a hornet’s nest.”

The screen door slammed behind me. I counted – one, two, three.

“Don’t slam the door,” bellowed Nan, right on cue. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

Bluey the budgie screeched in support.

I trudged from the darkened porch to the gloomy kitchen. Anytime the weather forecast was for a day of eighty degrees Fahrenheit or more, which was pretty much every day from October to April in Walgaree, Nan closed the curtains, blinds and doors to “keep the place cool”. It was as though she was a vampire, like Dracula, and scared of the light. All her closing up just made the house hotter and more depressing.

Nan was still ranting about doorframes and springs and her poor nerves when I entered the kitchen. “Honestly, young man, I’m at my wits’ end, trying to civilise you.” She stood by the kitchen bench where she’d lined up the best china teacups ready for the card girls.

Bluey screeched and flapped. Nan bustled to the cage and kissed the air.

“Sorry, Nan,” I muttered, placing the bottle by the milk jug.

“Next time we run out of milk, tell me.” She didn’t turn from Bluey.

“Yoo-hoo, Dawn.” Thelma Fielding’s voice made me think of the cockatoos in the gum trees by the river.

“She’s ten minutes early,” hissed Nan, before calling, “Coming, Thelma.” She turned back to me, voice flattening. “Fill the milk jug. And stay out of the sitting room.”

“Yes, Nan.” Why would I want to go anywhere near old crones drinking tea and gossiping?

She took off her apron, blew the budgie another kiss and bustled to the front door.

Bluey fluttered around the cage. A spray of seed husks scattered across the lino.

“How are you, Dawn, dear? Stinker of a day, isn’t it? Never mind …” Mrs Fielding’s endless stream of words swirled through the house like leaves caught in a northerly wind. The moment the kettle hinted at boiling, I filled the teapot and escaped to my bedroom.

As soon as I opened the door, I knew Nan had been in here. It wasn’t the smoothed bedspread or the closed curtains that gave it away. The air was somehow bruised.

Why couldn’t I have one place to escape from her and Dad?

I stomped to the window and flung back the curtains. A blast of heat and light hit me. Once my eyes adjusted I stared outside, past the skeletal clothes line at the end of the cement path and the sagging wire of the chook house, to the giant gum tree looming over our backyard. Nan hated that tree because it dropped bark and leaves and twigs into our yard.

At the top of the tree a magpie plunged its beak between its feathers. It shook itself, lifted its beak to the blue sky and warbled. A thought drifted into mind, riding on the back of the magpie’s carolling.

Was this it?

No nooks or crannies to escape into?

A town of trees bowed by heat, grass sucked dry and dusty footpaths?

A neurotic budgie, a pain in the bum grandmother and a father who didn’t care about anything except for the bank or the news?

I pressed my forehead against the window. Not for the first time, I wondered how different my life would have been if Mum was alive, if we still lived in Inverell and if Dad wanted to be around me.

With a huge effort, I pushed back from the window and crept to the kitchen to make a cordial.

Voices, punctuated by Bluey’s chirps, filled the stifling air. Between Bluey, Mrs Fielding’s cockatoo squawk, Mrs Scott’s canary trill, Miss Johnson’s sparrow twitter and Nan’s goose honk, it was more an aviary than a house.

“She’ll have to sell the caravan park,” trilled Mrs Scott.

“Well, of course. It’s hardly the place for a woman to live alone, is it?” declared Nan.

“Perhaps her son will help,” said Miss Johnson.

“He’s overseas,” said Nan. “Has been for years. Didn’t even come back for his own father’s funeral.”

“Hmmm.” I imagined Mrs Fielding’s beady eyes. That woman was made of animal parts. She had a bat’s face, a cockatoo’s voice, a wombat’s body and snake’s venom dripped from most things she said. “If you ask me, Arthur spent too much time with those darkies. And his son–”

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Wiradjuri Griffith Community

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Griffith High School students study Freedom Ride

Year 10 students from griffith high school have been studying sue lawson’s freedom ride. the book is based on the events of the freedom rides which were a series of protests led by charles perkins and sydney university students..

The protests raised awareness of racism in regional towns throughout Australia and were fundamental in changing laws and rights for Aboriginal people in Australia.

Below is an essay composed by Armand Gumera about Sue Lawson’s Freedom Ride.

Freedom Ride (2015) by Sue Lawson The 21st century coming-of-age novel, Freedom Ride (2015) was composed by Australian author Sue Lawson. It explores issues that are of importance to both the text and our society. Issues that include racism, violence, and bullying among many others. Lawson uses these issues to convey the central themes to the reader. Themes regarding judging people according to their race, the idea that people who grow up in ignorance do not know any different and the concept of people who grow up feeling insecure and neglected doubt themselves. In the story, these are shown from the perspective of Robbie, the main character. He has been raised by a conservative family, in Walgaree, a small town in NSW. Set in the 1960’s, when racial discrimination was widely accepted in Australia, this diagnostic text uses true events such as the Australian Freedom Ride led by Charles Perkins, to create a fictionalised story that represents and presents, in an engaging manner, these main themes to the audience. In Freedom Ride, one theme that is communicated is the widespread prevalence of people judging other people based on the colour of their skin. This is clearly evident in the novel when in Chapter 31 Robbie’s dad delivers a statement regarding an Aboriginal boy, saying “It’s wrong. Him (Barry) giving an Abo a job when a white boy would do it better.” The use of the short sentence ‘It’s wrong’, is used to create a sense of tension or demand and the use of the word ‘wrong’ shows the tone of Robbie’s dad when concerning Aborigines; it also establishes his position and view towards Micky an Aboriginal resident of the town, and the following sentence ‘Him giving an Abo a job when a white boy would do it better’ implies that his dad’s world-view is that of white superiority and prejudice towards black people. Another example of how this theme is being presented is in Chapter 24 where the McIntosh family decided to leave the caravan park after seeing Mickey working there, Mrs McIntosh describes Micky as a “dirty boong” uttering it in a hostile tone. This means that Mrs McIntosh and her family hold the exact same view as Robbie’s Dad but displayed more hatred. This is not surprising for the reason that during the period in which the novel was set, many people were especially racist. Therefore, this theme of judging people based on their race is effectively portrayed by Sue Lawson in the book by using the techniques of short sentences to create emotion and her choice of emotive and powerful words. The novel also presents the idea that people that grow up in ignorance do not know any different. This theme is depicted in Chapter 9 when Barry asks Robbie if his grandmother found overseas travel enjoyable and Robbie responded with: “Not a fan of anything outside Walgaree, especially anything foreign. Wish I had a penny for every time she told me flying makes your brain bleed and that concerts are ‘dens of sex and drugs’. Or that criminals with evil on their minds do ‘unspeakable things’ to travellers.” This quote suggests that Nan is a very conservative person; who has most likely obtained this mentality from living in a small isolated town with limited access to the outside world with the exception of newspapers which are most of the time biased. The idiom ‘Wish I had a penny for every time’ suggests that Nan frequently mentions these issues to Robbie. Also, Lawson uses visually descriptive words such as ‘flying makes your brain bleed’ and ‘dens of sex and drugs’ to illustrate what Nan’s outlook on foreign travel looks like on the minds of the reader. These examples effectively portray the attitudes which were prevalent at the time, showing that ignorant attitudes were not confined to matters by race. Furthermore, Freedom Ride explores the theme of people who grow up feeling insecure and neglected doubt themselves. This theme is revealed through Lawson’s characterisation of Robbie, the protagonist. An example of this is in Chapter 23 where Robbie tried to warn Micky (the Aboriginal boy) that Wright (the bully) would beat him up but could not for the reason that he was a weak cowardly boy, in the end of the chapter he states: “I worked out what I needed to say, but when I opened my mouth the words evaporated. At the end of the day, Micky turned left and I turned right, and the words were never said.” The first sentence indicates that he felt nervous, he had the words but he could not deliver them, which then results in him not being able to inform Micky about the impending assault. His self-doubt was caused by neglect and insecurity. His Nan and Dad mistreated Robbie in their own household. This quote created a sense of anxiety and helplessness. We have access to Robbie’s interior monologue, which obviously presented his personality to the audience. The example shown gave the reader a realistic and relatable view of a person with low self-esteem in a very conservative environment and the effects it had, and for this reason the theme of people who grow up feeling insecure and neglected doubt themselves is brilliantly conveyed to the audience. By exploring the text Freedom Ride in sufficient depth it becomes obvious that it provides themes that are portrayed effectively through the techniques of engaging characterisation, short, concise sentences, and emotive language. Also, it clearly shows powerful statements regarding race, but not just race; it too offers the dramatic journey of a teenager through all these issues in the past which becomes relevant to our society in the 21st Century as we still see these issues occurring today. Freedom Ride, stands out among other texts from its historical period and genre. This is why it communicates to the modern readers exceptionally.

By Armand Gumera – Year 10 Griffith High School

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"Freedom Ride" By Sue Lawson

The uncomfortable truth of racism embedded within 1960s Australian society, set against the backdrop of the Freedom Ride. Australia 1965. Racial tensions around the country are flaring, and the town of Walgaree is no exception. Robbie just wants to keep his head down, concentrate on his summer mowing job and avoid the wrath of his intolerant family. After all, there’s nothing he can do about how the Aborigines are treated. He’s only one person. But when a group of university students arrive in Walgaree with the Freedom Ride, Robbie realises it’s time to make a stand. Will he blow up everything he holds dear to change things for the better? Freedom Ride   is a thought-provoking reminder of the past, especially powerful when the Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for a future in which all Australians walk together.

About the Author Sue Lawson writes books for children and young adults. Her love for books began when she was a child on a farm in country Victoria where she spent her time reading, writing, listening to her father and grandfather's stories and avoiding working with the cattle. These days, she's added stationery shops to her football obsession and when not writing, teaches and runs workshops for young people and adults. In 2012, Pan's Whisper was short-listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, was a Notable Book at the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards and won the Australian Family Therapists' Award for Children's Literature.  You Don't Even Know  was short-listed for the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards in 2014.

• ISBN:   9781760658298
• ISBN-10:   1760658294
• Published:   1st August 2023
• Format:   Paperback
• Language:   English
• Audience:   Children
• For Ages:   13 - 18 years old
• Publisher:   Walker Books Australia
• Country of Publication:   AU
• Dimensions (cm):   20.5 x 13 x 2.5
• Weight (kg):   0.26

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Sunday 30 August 2015

Review: freedom ride.

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Freedom Ride by Sue Lawson

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Freedom Ride  by Sue Lawson

Black Dog Books, $17.95 pb, 365 pp, 9781925126365

I n 1965 a busload of students drove through a number of small Australian towns to protest the treatment of Aboriginal people. These events are the backdrop for Sue Lawson's Freedom Ride , a novel set in the fictional town of Walgaree, where racial tensions are high. Robbie, the novel's young protagonist, is generally obliging, but he is at an age where he must choose between remaining silent in order to fit in or sticking his neck out for what he believes is right.

Freedom Ride is set in a time and a place where indigenous locals were all but segregated – the Walgaree RSL doesn't even allow indigenous servicemen to drink at their bar – and it shines an uncomfortable spotlight on Australia's racist past. Robbie is too intimidated by his overbearing Nan and bullying classmates to protest against their racist behaviour. Then he meets Barry Gregory, who has returned to run the local caravan park. Barry gives Robbie a job working alongside Mickey, a young Aborigine. The two boys become friendly, but when news of the 'Freedom Ride' reaches Walgaree, anyone who doesn't know his place is in danger.

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Bec Kavanagh is a Melbourne based freelance writer, reviewer and young adult education specialist. Bec has worked on specialist literary events such as the A Thousand Words Festival . She speaks regularly about young adult fiction at professional development sessions, at school events and on Radio National’s Books & Arts Daily . She is currently working with the Stella Prize to set up a school’s program.

Freedom Ride

by Sue Lawson

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Sue Lawson’s Freedom Ride

Sue Lawson, Freedom Ride  (Walker Books Australia 2016)

This is a YA novel, that is to say, a novel intended for young teenagers. Fifteen-year-old Robbie Bowers lives with his bank-employee father and his grandmother in the tiny fictional New South Wales town of Walgaree. (One can’t help but notice that this sounds like a portmanteau of Walgett and Moree.) Robbie’s a frequent target for the school bully and his cronies, and home is no refuge. His grandmother is prim, humourless and authoritarian, a terrible cook with nasty gossiping friends. His father is hardly any better, having come back to live with his mother after losing his wife when Robbie was a baby. The stage is set for a coming of age story, in which Robbie must find a way to independence of spirit, connection with some decent people, and perhaps even a little happiness.

Things play out as expected. Robbie is befriended by the young man who has come home from London to take over the caravan park after his father died. Robbie accidentally unearths some family secrets and lies, exposes his father and grandmother and their friends as terrible people, and ends up with the possibility of a new life opening up for him.

At the same time, the novel is about the 1965 Freedom Ride, in which a group of university students led by Charles Perkins hired a bus and travelled through rural New South Wales for two weeks, documenting the living conditions of Aboriginal people and staging protests at, among other things, RSL clubs that excluded Aboriginal veterans and swimming pools that banned Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children from sharing the pool. The students arrive in Walgaree about four-fifth of the way through the book. In terms of the plot, they don’t do much more than provide a dramatic backdrop for Robbie’s climactic outburst. In fact, in terms of the plot, the terrible racism that is endemic in Walgaree serves mainly as a broader social justification for Robbie’s rebellion against his father and grandmother: they’re not only mean, deceitful, and bad cooks, but they’re unmitigated genocidal racists.

A historical note at the back lists the 37 participant in the Freedom Ride, and links it to the 1967 Referendum, the Land rights Campaign, the setting up of the Tent Embassy and the apology to the Stolen Generations. The book clearly aims to  informs a new generation of readers of a significant moment in Australian history. I think it will do that. However, I have two caveats.

First: even though there’s a language warning in the opening pages, the bruisingly racist dialogue, taken together with the focus on a white boy’s coming of age story while all but one of the Aboriginal  characters are pretty one-dimensional, makes me think it’s a book that should be read alongside something by an Indigenous writer: Anita Heiss’s anthology Growing up Aboriginal in Australia , which I hope to read soon, comes to mind. And there’s a big list of Indigenous Australian YA book here . [ Added later:  In the comments below, Greenspace01 mentions  A Bastard Like Me  by Charles Perkins, who led the Freedom Ride and appears as a character in this book.]

And second: there’s not a lot of complexity in the non-Indigenous characters. The racists are all mean-spirited bullies, gossips, who are willing, down to the last one of them, to cover up the most heinous crimes against Aboriginal people, and also they have horrible voices and can’t cook. The ones who take a stand against racism are good looking, warm, generous, and witty. Denouncing your racist family and getting the hell out of there is clearly the only thing to do. Sadly, it’s not always like that in the real world. It’s not that I wanted the book to soften its depiction of racism, but when the lines are drawn as simply as this, the story is unlikely to prompt its non-Indigenous readers to look at their own collusion in, or at best benefiting from, the oppression of Indigenous people.

Freedom Ride  is the fourteenth book I’ve  read for the 2018 Australian Women Writers Challenge .

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5 responses to “ sue lawson’s freedom ride ”.

I have this one too, but I haven’t got round to reading it yet. For all its flaws, I think it may be a useful book on two counts: firstly, it’s the only one I know of about the Freedom Ride, and secondly that it’s delivered as YA, so that its readers will learn something about this important historical event. I’ll have to read it myself to see what I think about it too.

I agree, Lisa, though I don’t know if the things I complain about are actually flaws, but maybe necessary limitations. (Though I did keep thinking of Roger Vaughan Carr’s YA novel Firestorm , in which the young protagonist discovers that his father, whom he loves and admires, has done something very wrong. The pain of that discovery is what I missed in this story, because the father who has done the terrible thing has already been terrible to his son.)

Sue Lawson’s acknowledgements mention Ann Curthoys’s 2002 book, Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers as ‘invaluable and fascinating’ – so there’s at least one other book on the subject, presumably not meant mainly for young readers

There’s also tne book A Bastard Like Me by Charles Perkins, and a film by Rachel Perkins https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/freedom-ride-blood-brothers/

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Thanks, Deborah. I’ve added that to the post.

Pingback: The Freedom Ride | Kathy Prokhovnik

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Freedom Ride

Robbie knows bad things happen in Walgaree. But it’s nothing to do with him. That’s just the way the Aborigines have always been treated.

In the summer of 1965 racial tensions in the town are at boiling point, and something headed Walgaree’s way will blow things apart.

It’s time for Robbie to take a stand. Nothing will ever be the same.

Published by Black Dog Books, 2015

“Australian writer Sue Lawson handles the subject with pathos, honesty and humour … Freedom Ride is an important and entertaining slice of Australian history. 4 ½ stars.”

member of the 1965 Freedom Ride

“A brilliant evocation of the racism in Australia of the 1960s and the Freedom Ride that challenged it.” 

“A pivotal moment in Australia’s history is captured in this story.”

Short-listed,

Older readers, children’s book council book of the year awards, 2016, ethel turner prize for young people’s literature, nsw premier’s literary awards, nsw premier’s history awards, young adults, western australian premier’s book awards, 2016.

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Freedom Ride by Sue Lawson

I consumed a book recently – consumed as in, could not put it down. it was freedom ride by sue lawson ..

I am a child of Migrants, whose educations were limited – Mum left school at the age of 7, and Dad was a boy sailor in the Royal Navy. (He sort of got an education along the way). But the gift they gave me was the love of reading, and now I’m working in a new Library, I have a whole lot more books to read to understand the collection and best help our users…..

So that brings me to Freedom Ride by Sue Lawson. As a child to migrants (who arrived in 1966), my education was limited to what was taught in school thirty odd years ago. The Freedom Rides were not part of it. Charles Perkins details here the importance of the Freedom Rides to challenging the racism and inequality that Indigenous Australians were experiencing. I think it’s vital that the Freedom Rides be spoken about, and celebrated for what it was trying to achieve.

Sue Lawson’s Freedom Ride is a great book to bring the discussion into the classroom and begin the educating of a generation about this, and about the real history of Australia.

A great resource for information on the actual Freedom Rides is the  AIATSIS website . I encourage you to suggest this book for your classroom or for the reader in your family.

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3 thoughts on “ freedom ride by sue lawson ”.

Thank you; I SO need to read this book 🙏🏼

You’d enjoy it…..my partner’s school is teaching it at the Year 10 level – and the History subject that they are learning about from my partner is the freedom rides. The more we learn about our history and the brave people who stood up for social change, the more we can inspire these future generations to get out there and rock the boat for equality.

Yes indeed 🙏🏼❤🙏🏼

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