Sam Watson (political activist)
Samuel William Watson, also known as Sammy Watson Jnr, was an Aboriginal Australian activist from the 1970s, who in later life stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate. He is known for being a co-founder of the Australian Black Panther Party in 1971/2. Through work at the Brisbane Aboriginal Legal Service in the early 1990s, Watson was involved in implementing the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. From 2009 was deputy director at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland.
Watson in 2007 at an Invasion Day rally
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest occupation site as a focus for representing the political rights of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. Established on 26 January 1972, and celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022, it is the longest continuous protest for Indigenous land rights in the world.
Image: First day of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, outside Parliament House, Canberra, 27 January 1972. Left to right Billy Craigie, Bert Williams, Michael Anderson and Tony Coorey. (38934424564) (cropped)
Image: Police question Aboriginal Embassy protesters, Canberra, 27 January 1972. (27864808359)
Image: Bobbi Sykes and Gordon Briscoe 1972
Image: Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra 006