National Sorry Day, officially the National Day of Healing, is an event held annually in Australia on 26 May commemorating the Stolen Generations. It is part of the ongoing efforts towards reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
2016 National Sorry Day event in Brisbane
A commemorative poster from 2008
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
A portrayal entitled The Taking of the Children on the 1999 Great Australian Clock, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, by artist Chris Cooke
The successive breeding out of "colour" in the Aboriginal population, demonstrated here in A. O. Neville's "Australia's coloured minority" book
The Lord Mayor's National Sorry Day in Brisbane, May 26, 2016, honoring Aboriginal culture and commemorating mistreatment of Indigenous Australians
Kevin Rudd on screen in Federation Square, Melbourne, apologising to the stolen generations.
