Charles Perkins

Charles Perkins AO (1936–2000) was an Indigenous rights campaigner and bureaucrat. Son of a Kalkadoon father and Arrernte mother, as a youth in Adelaide Perkins was a sought-after soccer player; after completing a trade apprenticeship, he played professionally in England. Widely credited as the first Indigenous person to attain a bachelor's degree from an Australian university, in 1965 he was a prominent organiser of and participant in the anti-discrimination 'freedom rides' through country NSW. He began his Commonwealth public service career in 1969 at the Office for Aboriginal Affairs, which became Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1972. That year he received a kidney transplant and appeared at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Having weathered a 12-month suspension from the public service, during which he published his 1975 autobiography A Bastard Like Me, in 1976 he returned to the DAA, becoming Secretary from 1984 to 1988. He was chair of the Arrernte Council of Central Australia between 1991 and 2000, and commissioner and deputy chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Commission from 1994 to 1995. Perkins continued his involvement in various sports, particularly soccer, until he died. He was accorded a State funeral, held in Sydney.

Throughout his life Frank Hinder made caricature drawings in his characteristic modernist style. He continued to make caricatures throughout the 1970s, often working from the television, and appending wry comments on topical subjects in current affairs. This quick, pen and watercolour portrait of Perkins was drawn by Hinder in 1974.

Gift of HOTA (Home of the Arts), Gold Coast 2019 with the encouragement of Patrick Corrigan AM
© Enid Hawkins (nee Hinder)