
‘The Lone Protestor: A M Fernando in Australia and Europe’ by Fiona Paisley, (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2012).
Warning: This post contains references to Aboriginal people who are now deceased.
The Lone Protestor is the story of a remarkable Aboriginal man who lived in Europe during the interwar years. Anthony Martin Fernando’s protest about the terrible treatment of Aborigines in Australia was featured on the front page of the highly regarded Der Bund newspaper in Switzerland in 1921. Fernando handed out hundreds of flyers decrying the behaviour of British towards Aborigines to Catholic pilgrims in the vicinity of St Peter’s in Rome. He used his court appearances at the Old Bailey to bring attention to the injustice received by Aborigines in Australia.
Creative, intelligent and audacious are some of the words that came to my mind when reading about A M Fernando. His protests were bold and very public, reaching to institutions that were at the heart of European civilisation. Yet few Australians knew about him at the time. His name has never been mentioned in history books… until now. Continue reading