The Civil Rights Movement - Further Reading

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to write some chapters for Cambridge University Press's History Transformed series. It was a labour of love and, best of all, it gave me an excuse to read a whole bunch of history books. 

One of the chapters I contributed was focused on the NSW syllabus's Rights and Freedoms core study for Stage 5. I found that I accumulated a lot of notes in my research, far more than I was able to use for the textbook, so this is as good a time as any to share an overview of useful texts for any teachers looking to deepen their knowledge of 20th century Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, and/or other aspects of the Rights and Freedoms core study.

Bringing Them Home report (Government Document, 1997)

• The Stolen Generations report is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a more empathetic understanding of what is perhaps Australia's greatest 20th century historical shame. This document can be easily found online and includes firsthand testimonies from many of those who identify as part of the Stolen Generations.

Thinking Black by Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus (Book, 2004)

• An account of 1930s Aboriginal activist William Cooper and his role in the Day of Mourning.

The 1967 Referendum by Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus (Book, 2007)

• How it happened, what happened, and what the long term impact was - this book is a great explainer of the watershed referendum. 

Bearing the Cross by David J. Garrow (Book, 1986)

• I only had limited time to delve into the U.S. movement as my focus needed to predominantly be on Australia, so I really wanted to sink my teeth into a book that would cover Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaigns in more than suitable detail. Bearing the Cross is exactly that book; a methodical and comprehensive look at MLK's role in the American Civil Rights movement that encompasses Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the powderkeg events in Birmingham that galvanised America, and a whole range of other historically significant events that link back to King. The perfect overview for an Australian reader wanting to look at the wider context for all the major events of the 1950s and '60s African-American Civil Rights Movement. 

Breath of Life by Kevin Gilbert and Eleanor Williams (Gallery Program, 1996)

• Published in connection to an art museum installation, if you can find this (check your local university or state library) it contains a lot of great background information on the Tent Embassy, Mabo and Native Title, and protests in the 1990s. As Kevin Gilbert had passed away three years earlier in 1993, this functions in some part as a preservation of the renowned activist's voice.

Invasion to Embassy by Heather Goodall (Book, 1996)

• An overview of a whole range of 20th century events in Aboriginal activism - includes stuff on the controversial Aboriginal-authored 1930s newspaper The Abo Call, the early civil rights movement as pioneered by Bill Ferguson and Jack Patten in the same era, the Cummeragunja Strike, and the Tent Embassy. 

Aboriginal Affairs: Seeking a Solution 1967-2005 by Max Griffiths (Book, 2006)

• This book is especially useful for NSW History teachers as it focuses on years that comprise the main part of the Stage 5 Core Study. Includes the Land Rights struggle, Mabo, Wik, the Tent Embassy, the Aboriginal Black Power Movement, Paul Keating's role, Redfern, and Yirrkala. 

Aboriginal Reconciliation by Justin Healey (Policy Textbook, 2006)

• Overview of the Reconciliation movement, traces cause and effect from 2006 back to 1918, and puts forward primary source arguments for the Apology two years before it happened. Invaluable if you can find a copy!

Indigenous Rights by Justin Healey (Policy Textbook, 2014)

• Outlines the then-ongoing response to recent events, including the 2008 Apology, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Northern Territory Intervention.

Yami: The Autobiography by Yami Lester (Book, 1993)

• I put this one in here because it connects to a part of Australian history that doesn't get talked about nearly enough: the UK testing of atomic weapons on Australian soil. I first heard about such a thing through Paul Kelly's haunting song Maralinga. This memoir provides a firsthand account of Yami Lester, the Aboriginal man mentioned in that song, who was blinded by the Maralinga Nuclear Bomb tests while living in the outback. 

Wandjuk Marika: A Life Story by Wandjuk Marika and Jennifer Isaacs (Book, 1995)

• This biography was created in consultation with Marika himself and the extensive use of his own words makes it as close to an autobiography as we were ever likely to get from the pivotal Arnhem Land activist. Marika was one of the Yolngu people's foremost representatives throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. In terms of historical significance, Marika was instrumental in both the historic Gove Land Rights case and the delivery of the Yirrkala Bark Petition. 

Protest, Land Rights and Riots by Barry Morris (Book, 2013)

• A modern overview of more recent events (the 1980s and 1990s) that aren't really covered elsewhere in this list (EG. The Brewarrina Riot, and Deaths in Custody). 

Charles Perkins by Peter Read (Book, 1990)

• Perkins has an autobiography that he wrote in 1975 (A Bastard Like Me) but this authorised 1990 biography has a bit more distance that allows for a broader look at events in historical context. Read utilises interview transcripts with Perkins to reconstruct the activist's role in the Aboriginal Civil Rights Movement. Provides a good account of the Australian Freedom Rides.

Why Weren't We Told? by Henry Reynolds (Book, 1999)

• The landmark reflection of white realisation in response to the revelations of the Bringing Them Home report, in which the Stolen Generations were brought much more broadly to the public's attention. 

The Forgotten War by Henry Reynolds (Book, 2013)

• A history of the Australian Aboriginal Rights Movement. An interest text as it looks at the activists themselves and their fight for change rather than the more-discussed history they were reacting to.

This list is by no means complete. There's a wealth of material available and the ongoing historiography of the Civil Rights Movement means that there is more great material being released all the time. Anyway, hopefully there's something above that might be helpful! 

Spilt Milk - Justin Time (Demo)

Matty in Spilt Milk. This is the only image I have of anything to do with the band.

 

When I was 15 years old I got a drumkit for my birthday. I wasn't hugely into music at this point but I wanted to play in a band with my friends and everyone needed a drummer. The music of the time at Cranebrook High was Nirvana, Metallica, Pearl Jam, and any number of American grunge/metal bands. It was 1995. 

Then one day I was at my new school, St Marys Senior High, and some other students had put together a skate punk band called Linoleum. They performed in the playground at lunchtime and played a cover of a Spilt Milk song called The Simpsons. I thought it was the greatest thing ever... the lyrics were hilarious, the music seemed accessible enough to play, and it was fast and energetic. Plus the band who actually wrote the song, Spilt Milk, were locals!

This was the moment I knew that I wanted to play punk music. 

Anyway, this is something different for this blog but hey, it's my blog so I'm just gonna roll with it. 

Spilt Milk were a Western Sydney-based punk band that started in 1994. The original lineup consisted of Matty Albert (bass, vocals) and three other guys - Warwick McGee-Wright, Daniel Paterson, and Steven Kittney. Everyone except for Matty left or was kicked out sometime not long after formation. Marty Durkan then came on board on guitar and Lee Graham joined 6 months after that on drums. After another 6 months, Lee was replaced by Damiem Elliot... this was the most stable lineup and the one that I think most people probably remember when they think of Spilt Milk.

Adam Check (AKA 'Checky', previously bassist and vocalist for the band Detox Unit) joined as a second guitarist in 1998 and left about ten months later... the band only lasted another 3 months after that, breaking up in 1999. 

In their five years Spilt Milk brought out two demo tapes.

Justin Time (1997)

1. The Simpsons
2. Sandwich
3. Kissing Cousins

It Would Suck to be a Duck (1998)

1. Service Station Food
2. Wanker
3. Exploit Me
4. Nah Fuck It

They also had some various tracks on comps and stuff. They played a lot of all-ages shows in Western Sydney, a lot of pub shows in Sydney, and toured Melbourne twice. Says Matty, when I asked him about his time in Spilt Milk back in 2008, "It still spins me out that after all this time people ask me about this band, ask me if we could reform and even yell the name out at me in the street."

Matty and Damien went on to form Unpaid Debt after Spilt Milk. Matty has also played in My Therapy, Columbia's Pain (also with Damien and Checky), Toe to Toe, and a bunch of other bands. Checky went on to play bass in One Dollar Short.

A while ago, in 2012, Matty gave me permission to make the first Spilt Milk demo available online. Here's what he had to say:

MATTY: Okay, this was the first demo Spilt Milk did and it was paid for on the back of winning a band comp in Richmond after rehearsing once and getting 3 songs together. The main prize was a $500 voucher which was used at Zen Studios. With this we managed to record with Geoff Lee, press 500 demo tapes with black and white covers, and a few posters. Justin Time was the name settled on for the demo. Spilt Milk was started by myself on lead guitars and vox with a mate Warwick McGee-Wright on guitar. We were joined by Daniel Patterson on bass and Steven Kittney on drums. These are the first songs I'd ever tried to write and the lyric content wasn't exactly groundbreaking but fuck it, it was fun.

1. The Simpsons (Click here to listen/download)

MATTY: OJ is about the stupidity that the Aussie media had such a large coverage over a story about a guy we didn't give a fuck about. Not even the sport he played and his shit appearances in movies. Remember there wasn't any ESPN or pay TV at all.

2. Sandwich (click to listen/download)

MATTY: Sandwich is a piss take on munchies and Aussie vegemite.  

3. Kissing Cousins (click to listen/download)

MATTY: Kissing Cousins is a true story like a lot of my later punk writing about dirty, wrong people in the world. Especially the West of Sydney.

Bonus Track 1: Hot Stuff (click to listen/download)

MATTY: Hot Stuff is a Donner Summer cover. We were asked by Fox (Nancy Vandal) and the boys to be involved in the Bust a Move compilation in a tribute to 80s disco. We scored the second spot on the CD because Fox apparently liked it so much. At this time we had the longest and probably most well-known line-up as a three piece with Marty Durkan on bass and Damien Elliot on drums. The latter moving on to Unpaid Debt with me. He's also in a few other bands, with the most recent being Between the Devil and the Deep.

Bonus Track 2: Sex Me Hard (click to listen/download)

Editor's Note: I'd found this song at the last minute so wasn't able to get any words off Matty at the time about it. I believe it featured on another compilation.

Sources: This was pulled together from two main sources, a blog I used to write for the now-defunct Orble Network called Music Australia, and retired counterculture site called Duderocket. Many thanks to Matty for chatting with me both times and allowing for the songs to be posted. If anyone connected with the band has any corrections, suggestions, or retractions, feel free to let me know and I'll adjust the blog accordingly.

ICAV Paragraph Structure

Quite some time ago, we're talking about 10 years, I attended some Professional Learning run by Emily Bosco and Anthony Bosco of Into English. This PL was focused on Nineteen Eighty-Four but the thing that stood out to me was a paragraph components activity where four different elements were highlighted to help students understand the purpose of each part. 

(Full disclosure: I've since gone on to write for Into English but this was back when I'd only been teaching English for a couple of years and didn't know Emily or Anthonyyet). 

Anyway, the activity in the Nineteen Eighty-Four PL was focused on vocabulary and crafting a paragraph with enough relevant detail. I'm not here to talk about this today. I want to look instead at how the four different elements can be used to prompt students to think about writing structure. 

I don't personally invest myself as a teacher in any particular paragraphing acronym. Off the top of my head, I'm familiar with or have taught (or been required to teach): PEEL, TEEL, CLACEL, PEAL, TEAL, ALARM, PETAL, SEAL, OREO and I'm sure there have been some others. To be honest, it doesn't matter which of these get used, the point is whether a student understands it and if they're able to use the acronym to build an effective framework for writing about texts. With this in mind, I tend to use whatever each particular class is likely to 'get'. If the school is an ALARM school then it makes sense to use ALARM because students should (hopefully) already understand it. If some students are really struggling and have some literacy deficits, then I'll probably aim for something as simple as PEE (Point Example Explanation) just to get them started. If I have a class of skilled reader/writers then I might tell them to just write freely without thinking about paragraph formulae at all and then go from there. And if a student has a tutor who's taught them a completely different way of writing a paragraph that I hadn't even considered, then who am I to stop that if it's working? My point is that I've come to realise that there's no definitive way of doing it. 

This brings me to ICAV. I don't use this all the time but I've found that sometimes, with some particular students who are a bit stuck, that it helps them to think about things in a different way. 

What it is: Something that can kickstart a student's thinking and get them writing, which is often the biggest hurdle. 

What it isn't: A formula for writing HSC examination essays (...unless, of course, it seems to work within this context for a particular student!) 

Here is a quick explanation of the acronym:

• Idea. Same as concept, topic sentence, thesis, or point. What is the main idea that your paragraph is exploring?
• Context. Provide some background for your idea. Expand on your initial sentence by adding some contextual details. 
• Analyse. Provide an example from the text with analysis of an identified technique.
• Values. What conclusions can be drawn about the values being explored in the text? What stance or position is potentially being suggested by the author?

I like it because it builds-in a relevant way of talking about context. The values bit at the end also helps students reconceive their overall paragraph in a new way so that they're not just repeating their main point.

Here are examples of how it can be used with a preamble for students to read. The first is a general example and the second a specific one.

Poetry

ICAV (Ideas Context Analyse Values) is a way of structuring and writing paragraphs. The first step is to pick a poem, any of the ones we've looked at this term, and to write at least four sentences using the guideline below so we can start practising paragraph writing.

1. Write a sentence or two explaining the main IDEA of the poem. Don't forget to mention the name of the poem and its composer.
2. What is the CONTEXT behind this poem and idea? Think about how they connect.
3. Give at least TWO examples from the text that explore the idea. Use 'inverted commas' to quote each example, identify the techniques used, and ANALYSE how this technique highlights or enhances what the poet is trying to say.
4. Link back to what the poet VALUES and how the poem explores this.

Writing about Fritz Lang's Metropolis

Examine a range of Metropolis screenshots and select one to form the basis of your paragraph. 

• Write down an IDEA that's relevant to what you see.
• EG. Capitalist control of the means of production.
• EG. Dehumanisation resulting from capitalist exploitation of workers.
• Expand upon your topic sentence by giving further CONTEXT.
• EG. Marxism, industrial expansion after WWII, influence of German industrialists like Hugo Stinnes.
• ANALYSE techniques - deconstruct the screenshot in terms of what connects it to the context.
• EG. The close-up of the clock is symbolic of the amount of time workers are required to work, and the way that their time has been turned into a commodity to be exploited. 
• What conclusions can you draw about the VALUES of the composer?
• EG. Lang establishes the value of the individual by calling the viewer's attention to the process of dehumanisation visited upon the workers. 

It's not a revolutionary approach but it can be a useful way to mix things up a bit. I've found that it works best with the outliers at either end of the bell curve - students who find it difficult to write paragraphs altogether and students who are quite high ability but need that spark to get them started.

Credit to Emily Bosco and Anthony Bosco for the initial Idea, Context, Technique, Values approach to paragraph vocabulary.