Author Description

When Mary Bennett died in 1961, Australia lost one of its leading Aboriginal rights activists. Mary's crusade is still, sadly, a current one, and this book serves to historicize the ongoing struggle for Aboriginal rights through the lens of Mary's campaign. By tracing Mary's advocacy - from the 1920s, when the possibility of Aboriginal human rights was first mooted, to the 1960s, when an attempt was made to have the Aboriginal question raised before the United Nations - Just Relations charts a large portion of human rights history. However, the book also tracks a discourse of needs, moral codes, and sentiments, as well as the urgent goal of keeping people alive. In this sense, then, Mary Bennett's story demonstrates the close connection between the rise of humanitarianism as a political project and the rise of human rights. ***Just Relations was shortlisted for the 2016 NSW Premier's Australian History Prize. *** Librarians: ebook available on ProQuest and EBSCO [Subject: Biography, Aboriginal Studies, Human Rights, Australian Studies, History]