'An important tribute to the work and life of an extraordinary Aboriginal activist
'William Cooper's passionate struggle against the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the denial of their rights, and his heroic fight for them to become citizens in their own country, has been widely commemorated and celebrated. By carefully reconstructing the historical losses his people suffered and endured, William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story reveals how the first seventy years of Cooper's life inspired the remarkable political work he undertook in the 1930s Focusing on Cooper's most important campaigns - his famous petition to King George VI for an Aboriginal representative in the Australian parliament, his call for a day of mourning after 150 years of colonisation, the walk-off of the Yorta Yorta people from Cummeragunja reserve in 1939 and his opposition to the establishment of an Aboriginal regiment in the Second World War - this carefully researched study sheds important new light on the long struggle that Indigenous people have fought…' (Publication summary)
'A new biography shows how William Cooper set out to civilise white Australia'
'As a Yorta Yorta academic and anthropologist who teaches and researches upon the land of my people, I was honoured to be asked to review this book by Bain Attwood. Uncle William Cooper has inspired many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people through his work as a human rights activist. Through his activism, Uncle William contributed to the identity of the Yorta Yorta community, serving as an Elder in Melbourne, Shepparton and across the world. The Yorta Yorta community honour his contribution where possible, and his descendants carry on his work today by representing and honouring his work in education and legal institutions.' (Introduction)
'William Cooper is an icon in the Koorie and Victorian communities. However, while Cooper wrote much in a public way in his later life, he left few private papers. Arthur Phillip, iconic in settler history, was the same, writing much official correspondence but leaving few private writings to assist a biographer. Just as Alan Frost did in Arthur Phillip, 1738–1814: His Voyaging (1987), Bain Attwood in this engaging life story writes about Cooper through the contexts in which he moved, particularly when few other traces of his life remain. Attwood also argues this is more appropriate for an Aboriginal story, of a life so lived in a community.'(Introduction)
‘Start Wobbling Your Tongue’
Penny Russell
(presenter),
2021
23604955
2021
single work
podcast
'As momentum builds for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, it is timely to reflect on the career of William Cooper. A Yorta Yorta elder and founding secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League, Cooper gathered support for Indigenous representation in parliament and for voting and land rights during the interwar years. Historian Bain Attwood’s new book tells Cooper’s story but resists the biographical impulse that would separate the man from his social milieux. In today’s episode, Professor Emerita Penny Russell reads her review of Attwood’s portrait of this remarkable man, whose eloquence has left only a scant textual record. What survives reveals a figure ‘always driven by a profound vision of justice and moral uplift’.
'Penny Russell is a historian of families, intimacy, and social encounters in nineteenth-century Australia, with a longstanding interest in the intricacies of gender, class, race, and culture in colonial societies. Penny is a Professor Emerita at The University of Sydney.' (Production summary)
'The name of Yorta Yorta elder William Cooper shines bright in the history of Aboriginal activism in Australia between the two world wars. It is linked with the formation of the Australian Aborigines’ League, of which he was the founding secretary; the Day of Mourning on the anniversary of white settlement in 1938; and a petition intended for George V, signed by almost 2,000 Aboriginal people and demanding Aboriginal representation in parliament. This last was perhaps Cooper’s most cherished project. He spent years gathering signatures and waiting for the most opportune moment to present it; his disappointment at the indifferent response of the Australian government darkened his final years.' (Introduction)
'William Cooper is an icon in the Koorie and Victorian communities. However, while Cooper wrote much in a public way in his later life, he left few private papers. Arthur Phillip, iconic in settler history, was the same, writing much official correspondence but leaving few private writings to assist a biographer. Just as Alan Frost did in Arthur Phillip, 1738–1814: His Voyaging (1987), Bain Attwood in this engaging life story writes about Cooper through the contexts in which he moved, particularly when few other traces of his life remain. Attwood also argues this is more appropriate for an Aboriginal story, of a life so lived in a community.'(Introduction)
'As a Yorta Yorta academic and anthropologist who teaches and researches upon the land of my people, I was honoured to be asked to review this book by Bain Attwood. Uncle William Cooper has inspired many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people through his work as a human rights activist. Through his activism, Uncle William contributed to the identity of the Yorta Yorta community, serving as an Elder in Melbourne, Shepparton and across the world. The Yorta Yorta community honour his contribution where possible, and his descendants carry on his work today by representing and honouring his work in education and legal institutions.' (Introduction)
'A new biography shows how William Cooper set out to civilise white Australia'
‘Start Wobbling Your Tongue’
Penny Russell
(presenter),
2021
23604955
2021
single work
podcast
'As momentum builds for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, it is timely to reflect on the career of William Cooper. A Yorta Yorta elder and founding secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League, Cooper gathered support for Indigenous representation in parliament and for voting and land rights during the interwar years. Historian Bain Attwood’s new book tells Cooper’s story but resists the biographical impulse that would separate the man from his social milieux. In today’s episode, Professor Emerita Penny Russell reads her review of Attwood’s portrait of this remarkable man, whose eloquence has left only a scant textual record. What survives reveals a figure ‘always driven by a profound vision of justice and moral uplift’.
'Penny Russell is a historian of families, intimacy, and social encounters in nineteenth-century Australia, with a longstanding interest in the intricacies of gender, class, race, and culture in colonial societies. Penny is a Professor Emerita at The University of Sydney.' (Production summary)
