Blak History Month🎙William Cooper: A Voice for Justice in a Country That Refused to Listen.

William Cooper was a man far ahead of his time — a quiet revolutionary whose determination helped lay the foundation for the modern Aboriginal rights movement in Australia. Born around 1861 in Yorta Yorta Country near the Murray River, Cooper lived through a period of brutal colonial expansion, land dispossession, and relentless government control over the lives of Aboriginal people. But he would not be silenced.

A proud Yorta Yorta man, Cooper spent much of his early life working as a shearer, labourer, and missionary assistant — all the while watching his people suffer under discriminatory policies. He didn’t receive a formal education, but he was deeply literate in justice. By his 70s, he had become one of the most influential Aboriginal political figures of his generation.

In 1933, Cooper began circulating a petition to King George V, demanding land rights and political representation for Aboriginal Australians. He gathered over 1,800 signatures — an extraordinary act of grassroots organising at a time when Aboriginal people weren’t even recognised as citizens. Though the Australian government refused to pass the petition on, it became a historic marker of Black political agency.

In 1938, Cooper led what is now recognised as the first Aboriginal civil rights protest — the Day of Mourning, held on Australia Day to challenge the celebration of colonisation and dispossession. It was a bold, public demand for equality and recognition at a time when few in the country were listening.

Perhaps most famously, Cooper led a protest against Kristallnacht — the Nazi-led attacks on Jewish communities in Germany. In a time when Aboriginal Australians were denied basic rights themselves, Cooper’s empathy crossed oceans. He personally delivered a letter to the German consulate in Melbourne, condemning the treatment of Jews — making it one of the only known private protests against Nazi Germany in the world at that time.

William Cooper passed away in 1941, but his legacy lives on. His courage, conviction, and commitment to justice remind us that the fight for human rights is not just about policy — it’s about people who dare to stand up, even when the world refuses to see them.