Abo Call

The Australian Abo Call, also known simply as Abo Call, was the first Aboriginal-focused publication printed in Australia, with all issues published in 1938.

Front page of The Australian Abo Call April 1938

History

There was a total of six issues of The Australian Abo Call, all published between April and September 1938.[1] It was the first publication in Australia focused solely on Aboriginal issues and politics.[2][3]

The paper was written and edited by John (Jack) Patten, who co-founded of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) in 1937, and featured news gathered by Patten on his travels through eastern Australia, as well as from correspondents nationwide. The newspaper's tagline was "The Voice of the Aborigines".[3]

William Ferguson, who co-founded the APA with Patten, was opposed to the publication of the Abo Call on the grounds that he believed it was a mouthpiece for its right-wing financial backers P. R. Stephensen and William John Miles. Ferguson also considered the newspaper's title to be insulting towards Aborigines.[lower-alpha 1]

Stephensen was known as a writer and publisher, and was honorary secretary of the Aboriginal Citizenship Committee, a support group of the APA,[3] but was also known for turning to pro-Fascist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Communist views in his magazine The Publicist. which he founded in 1936.[4]

Abo Call closed down after six months of publication, due to lack of funds.

Archives

Abo Call is available online through Trove, a service hosted at the National Library of Australia which allows access to historic Australian periodicals and newspapers.[5]

The State Library of New South Wales holds the six issues that were published, among Percy Reginald Stephensen's papers.[6][7]

Legacy

Marcia Langton later wrote that she and the other founders of the monthly paper Koori Bina at Black Women's Action in 1976 had been inspired by Abo Call.[8][9]

See also

Footnotes
  1. In contemporary Australian use "Abo" is considered an offensive term.

References
  1. Patten, J. T.; Aborigines Progressive Association (1938), The Australian Abo call the voice of the Aborigines, J.T. Patten, ISSN 1447-9060
  2. Meadows, Michael; Helen Molnar (2002). "Bridging the Gaps: Towards a history of Indigenous media in Australia". Media History. 8 (11): 9–20. doi:10.1080/13688800220134473.
  3. "The Australian Abo Call: the voice of the Aborigines". Discover Collections: Indigenous Australians. State Library of NSW. Archived from the original on 26 February 2014. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  4. Cunneen, Chris. "Miles, William John (1871–1942)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, (Melbourne University Press), 1986
  5. "The Australian Abo Call". Trove Digitised Newspapers. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  6. "P. R. Stephensen – Papers and pictorial material, ca. 1905-1971". State Library of NSW. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  7. Brown, Jerelynn (2011). "Tabloids in the State Library of NSW collection: A reflection of life in Australia". Australian Journal of Communication. 38 (2): 107–121.
  8. "Black Women's Action Group". Redfern Oral History. 26 September 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
  9. Langton, Marcia; Kirkpatrick, Brownlee (1979). "A listing of Aboriginal periodicals". Aboriginal History. ANU Press. 3 (1/2): 120–127. ISSN 0314-8769. JSTOR 24045737. Retrieved 26 September 2022. PDF
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