‘They took our culture – now there is no law’

It was late November 2010, one of those red-hot November days that only the Western Desert can turn on. Over six hundred people travelled for days from far and wide to bury young Jampijinpa at the small town of Nyirripi, a four-and-a-half hour dusty drive west from Alice Springs on rough dirt roads.

One night in K-Town: a den of iniquity, Shakespeare’s rose, police incompetence and a cheeky trouble-maker who was “no Jack The Ripper”

It is a matter of some sadness to the Court to have been involved in a matter which has so many unsatisfactory and unsavoury actions of the police force of the Northern Territory ... It may be that the defendant can be described as a serial pest. He may be provocative and cheeky and a trouble causer. He is 19 years old. He is not Jack the Ripper.

Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 10 – Prime Minister Paul Keating’s Redfern Park Speech, 10 December 1992

There is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through fifty thousand years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation. We cannot imagine that. We cannot imagine that we will fail.

Constable David Jennings. NT cop and Ku Klux Klansman. Part 5. “All I have is a crusade”

“We must remove white police from the aboriginal reserves – and we must tell the black man: 'Don’t you leave your reserve all you will be subject to the white man’s law'. David Jennings, November 1978

Constable David Jennings. NT cop and Ku Klux Klansman. Part 3. Taking PR advice from the Klan

"Territory Ku Klux Klansman, David Jennings, has been advised by his American counterparts on how to use even an unwilling press to get his message across. David Jennings resigned from the Northern Territory Police Force last week, one day before he was due to face internal hearing on charges relating to claims of Ku Klux Klan activity in the Territory."

Constable David Jennings. NT cop and Ku Klux Klansman. Part 2: From KKK “White Giant” to an “embarrassment to the force”

NT News. Klan has HQ in the NT This is part two of a series that charts the short history of the Ku Klux Klan in the Northern Territory of Australia and the involvement of NT police officer Constable David Jennings in that story. It is part of a developing set of posts and series [...]

Essential documents from Aboriginal Australia: 9 – The Original Wave Hill Mob Letter of 1967

From the rich man’s table, by John Frith, The Herald, July 1968 The Original Wave Hill Mob Letter of 1967 To: His Excellency The Right Hon. Lord Casey Governor-General of Australia 10 April, 1967 We, the leaders of the Gurindji people, write to you about our earnest desire to regain tenure of our tribal lands in [...]

Constable David Jennings. NT cop and Ku Klux Klansman. Part 1.

David Jennings, The Star. November 1978 This is part one of a series that charts the short history of the Ku Klux Klan in the Northern Territory of Australia and the involvement of NT police officer Constable David Jennings in that story. It is part of a developing set of posts and series that I’m [...]

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