Charles Perkins was a fighter all his life: a fighter for his people's right to determine their own lives; a fighter against the countless forms that day-to-day racism takes in Australian society. Born in Central Australia to a family struggling to survive in a White-controlled world, sent at 8 to the harsh regime of St. Francis House in Adelaide, using his talent as a soccer player to get himself to Sydney and university, Charles Perkins pushed beyond racism and poverty to become a leading Indigenous activist and Australia's highest ranking Aboriginal bureaucrat. His role in the 1965 Freedom Ride through rural New South Wales, his famous clashes with ministers and his sensational standing down as Department of Aboriginal Affairs Secretary made him one of twentieth-century Australia's most controversial figures. His intimate knowledge of Indigenous communities and their needs, his vision and commitment to self-determination, his ability to take the long view and to stay to fight another day made him one of the greatest.
