The bus tour of Sydney University students to Moree in 1965 highlighted rampant racism and disparity in health, education and housing for Aboriginal people in the state’s deep north.

Tamworth woman Sharon Porter was a three-year-old living in Moree the day the Freedom Riders came to town.

Yesterday she travelled with her mother, children, niece and grandchildren to her homeland.  She hoped the younger generation would drink in the significance of the pivotal historic event, which saw Aboriginal people allowed into the local pool for the first time and inspired later milestones, such as the 1967 referendum which finally recognised Indigenous people as citizens in their own country.

“I really want to teach the next generations, so they know their history,” Sharon said. 

“They’re getting it from us, not from books or media.

“(Aboriginal people) could go to war and die for their country, but they couldn’t go to the pub afterwards.

“It’s important knowing what racism we suffered, so as not to repeat history.”

The discrimination against Aboriginal children using the town pool meant they often swam in the river on baking hot summer days, which sometimes led to ill health and drowning tragedies.

“My mother saw one of her cousins drown in the river,” Sharon said. 

Though the Freedom Ride won them entry into the pool and other venues that discriminated against Aboriginal people, they were still forced to shower before and to leave before non-Indigenous children finished school. 

Sharon’s mother, Rose, never swam in the Moree pool. The racism was still too entrenched.

“I just didn’t want to go. We were still copping stuff from the white people,” Rose said. 

For her, the most important thing was education – she went to a mission school, while Sharon started university and granddaughter Aimee is a graduate. 

Aimee said she was keenly aware freedoms and access to education and health had not come without a struggle.

“Anniversaries like this remind us not the take things for granted,” Aimee said. 

“It’s still very much a lived experience. 

“We’re still fighting a lot of disparity. Segregation hasn’t disappeared overnight.”  Sharon’s niece, Kristy Porter, is the granddaughter of Rhonda Gray, who jumped on the Freedom Ride bus as a 15-year-old in Lightning Ridge to travel to Moree in 1965. 

Ms Gray’s grandson, and Kristy’s brother, Kyol Blakeney, is the second Indigenous person on Sydney University’s Student Representative Council and is leading the new generation of Freedom Riders this week.

Sharon said the long weekend would be a chance to reconnect with her mob and listen to stories from the past, as well as participate in a march today and take a splash in Moree’s all-important pool.