CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA, 1972

We put the women at the front line. We thought that the police would not arrest them. Some of us were not so sure, but it was the women who insisted upon it. We had argued about it through the night and by three in the morning, they had persuaded us.

We linked arms - Aborigines and students, black and white, men and women - and surrounded the tent that had our flags flying.

We shouted, ‘Land Rights Now. Land Rights Now’.

We sang ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’.

Hundreds of onlookers - tourists with their cameras, public servants in their pin-striped suits - stood by and watched.

There were about sixty of us and just as many coppers. It was after ten thirty that the police started to move on us. They hit us with fists, putting four of us in the hospital. The newspaper reported that three coppers had to have x-rays.

They moved on us again three days later when we tried to rebuild our Embassy. In the morning about a hundred of us marched from the university to Parliament House. We sat down on the road and listened to speeches. About fifty coppers were watching us. We then tried to erect another tent and we formed a human shield around it. By this time there were about two hundred of us and two hundred and fifty of them. There were more arrests.

The cameras were there and we made news around the world.

A week later we had a peaceful protest and re-established our Embassy.

Above our tents we flew a flag - black for the colour of the people, red for the land and the blood that has been spilt upon it, and yellow for the sun that with its rising brings together the people and the land, always.

There was momentum. We knew that what we were fighting for was right and that we were a part of something that would have a lasting impact.

Even though I couldn’t know that one day I would talk about the Tent Embassy with my daughter, tell her what happened and what we hoped for, I knew that I was making history.