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The Legacy Of Eddie Mabo, A Milestone Of Hope For Indigenous Australia

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The Legacy of Eddie Mabo, a Milestone of Hope for Indigenous Australia
Introduction
The life and legacy of Eddie Koiki Mabo continues to be one of the most influential and hopeful milestones in the reconciliation of Australia’s indigenous people. Against all odds, Mabo strived and succeeded in claiming back land rights that were taken away by settlers and brought significance to the land claims of indigenous people. However, this was not a case of one man’s right to land, but a case of many cultures’ right to hope. Eddie Mabo’s legal victory against the Australian government provided hope for the future of culture, traditions and custodians of Indigenous Australia.
Life as an Indigenous Person in Early Australia
Mabo was born into an Australia of racism and inequality, where hope within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was seemingly nonexistent. Mabo was born in 1936, over a decade before Indigenous Australians were considered Australian citizens and 39 years before the eventual removal of the infamous White Australia Policy (Jupp, 2006).
The Story of Eddie Mabo …show more content…

However his real story begins at the age of 31 (in 1967), when he became a gardener at James Cook University in Townsville (Rickard, 2008). This job was essentially his foot in the door and he described it as having a massive impact on his life, as it gave him the opportunity frequently talk with university historians and ignited his passion for land rights. This was furthered when, in 1974, he and two historians, Noel Loos and Henry Reynolds, were talking about Mabo’s land back home. Loos recalls “… (We) then had the difficult responsibility of telling him that he didn't own that land, and that it was Crown land. Koiki was surprised, shocked and even...” (Reynolds,

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