How a self-taught Aboriginal activist challenged the Nazi regime from colonial Australia

History · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: William Cooper, a Yorta Yorta man who had only seven months of formal schooling, became the first Aboriginal leader to orchestrate a national rights movement. In 1938, he led a historic protest against the Nazi government, drawing a powerful parallel between the persecution of Jews and the treatment of Indigenous Australians.

Born in the 1860s, Cooper spent his youth working on pastoral stations before finding a mentor in missionary Daniel Matthews. His education was sporadic, yet he became a voracious reader, studying global Indigenous rights movements. By the 1930s, living in Footscray, Melbourne, he founded the Australian Aborigines' League. He spent years collecting 1,814 signatures for a petition to King George V, demanding land rights and parliamentary representation, only to have the Australian government block its delivery.

Cooper’s activism was deeply informed by his Christian faith and a belief in the power of organized protest. When democratic channels failed, he joined forces with other activists to organize the 1938 Day of Mourning, the first interstate protest by Aboriginal Australians. That same year, he led a march to the German Consulate in Melbourne to protest the Nazi government's treatment of Jewish people following Kristallnacht. While some historians debate the uniqueness of this protest, its symbolic weight remains profound, highlighting the shared experience of disenfranchisement.

Though Cooper achieved few of his immediate political goals during his lifetime, his legacy proved transformative. He successfully established Aborigines Sunday, now commemorated as NAIDOC Week, and mentored his nephew, Douglas Nicholls, who later led the campaign for the landmark 1967 Australian referendum. Today, Cooper is honored globally, including through a professorship at Yad Vashem in Israel and numerous memorials across Australia. His life serves as a testament to the enduring power of moral courage in the face of systemic state obstruction.

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