In December 1938, an elderly Aboriginal activist led a small delegation from his home in the inner-western Melbourne suburb of Footscray to the steps of the city’s German consulate to protest the attacks on Jews in Nazi Germany that occurred less than a month earlier.

The attacks came to be known as Kristallnacht.

Until recently the protest march was little known. Over the past 15 years, it has been celebrated as a symbol of solidarity between Aboriginals and the Jewish diaspora. It was a big year for Yorta Yorta elder, William Cooper.

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On 26 January 1938, Cooper assisted in organising the Day of Mourning protest for Aboriginal rights, which included a renewed call for Aboriginal representation in the federal parliament. It was a point Cooper had already made in a 1933 petition to the UK’s King George V.

The Day of Mourning protest is now generally regarded as the antecedent of Survival Day, Invasion Day, the increasingly popular Change the Date push, and the more radical Abolish Australia Day movement.

Cooper’s 1933 petition, containing 2,000 signatories, may be viewed as a 75-year precursor to the Statement from the Heart.

The remarkable feats do not end there either. In 1936, Cooper led other eminent names in Aboriginal history, such as Marge Tucker and Shadrach James, in the establishment of the political organisation, the Australian Aborigines League. Shortly after emerging, the League issued its own nine-point plan. Among the program were calls for control over Aboriginals to be transferred from the states to the commonwealth. That one would be legislated in 1967. Others included, recognition by the state and commonwealth legal systems of tribal laws; formal land rights; the need for effective anti-discrimination and racial vilification legislation; improved funding for Aboriginal affairs; and access to higher and tertiary education.

In 1939, again teaming up with his Yorta Yorta countryman, Jack Patton, and other black luminaries including Eric and Bill Onus, Cooper – aged 78 – participated in the Cummeragunja walk-off in protest at the NSW government’s dismal management of the mission, the restrictions on the liberty of its residents and the deplorable living conditions.

Cooper had already spent six years in Melbourne before the famous Cummeragunja walk-off took place. During that time he’d started frequenting Melbourne’s Yarra Bank, a “speaker’s corner” found at the foot of the city’s “Eastern Hill” where Victoria’s parliament stands. Every Sunday Cooper would walk into town from Footscray to deliver a public oratory on Aboriginal rights and advancement. He’d then return by foot to his western suburbs home again.

It’s impossible not to admire the man for his bravery and rectitude. He was a dedicated activist decades (and decades) before his time. We continue to stand on his shoulders as advocates for recognition of our land rights and improved black lives today.

In his honour a $1m scholarship funded by the Gandel family’s philanthropy in partnership with Victoria’s Monash University was announced this week. The new program will provide two Indigenous students each year with comprehensive financial support over the course of their studies with the aim of fostering future generations of disrupters and change-makers like William Cooper.

In June, with a gesture towards truth-telling, the Australian Electoral Commission also honoured Cooper, renaming the federal division of Batman in Melbourne’s inner-northern suburbs after him.

Cooper’s solidarity and support for the Jewish people in the name of social justice is also acknowledged internationally. In 2010, the Holocaust History Museum of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem named a new professorship for the study of resistance during the Holocaust in his honour.

The bond that Cooper forged between blackfellas and the Jewish people resonated in both communities throughout the passing decades, inspiring the lives of those who’ve figured in some of black Australia’s most significant moments.

Chief amongst many, perhaps, is the contribution of Ron Castan QC who was the lead counsel in the historic Mabo decision that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius, the fabrication relied on for so long to justify the theft of First Nations lands for the establishment of the colonies, and later, Australia. Castan was also key to the conception and drafting of Wik. Castan’s deep rejection of racism and his contribution to the fight for Aboriginal rights consumed the best part of his working life.

The bulk of it was done pro bono.

Shortly after Castan’s premature death in 1999, the then Justice of the High Court of Australia Michael Kirby said in a tribute:

There was no more radical design than that which Ron Castan conceived with his colleagues to rewrite 150 years of settled land law. It was a plan breathtaking in its boldness. It challenged fundamentals. It did so in an area traditionally resistant to change in every legal system – rights in land.

Later Castan denounced the Native Title Amendment Bill 1997 and opposed the Howard government’s 10-point Wik plan, claiming that politicians and mining company CEOs were irresponsibly fear-mongering white Australia over the issue of native title.

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Regrettably, the actions of both of these great men and the bond between their advocacy is often casually overlooked by some activists today who carelessly conflate populist right-wing Israeli nationalism with more politically conscientious Jews’ commitment to social justice.

This idiocy is performed equally by neo-Nazis and the tin-foil hat division of the left who are increasingly attributing some of the grossest injustices around the globe to “Zionists”, a thinly veiled term that promotes anti-semitism.

It’s concerning that our staunch Blak activists who demand an appreciation of the nuance of our politics fail to critically appraise the suspect rhetoric that potentially alienates our proven allies.

We would do well to recall the social environment leading to the bloody events of the Night of Broken Glass in Germany 80 years ago, and – more specifically – William Cooper’s response to that racialised persecution: A march that formed a connection between two of history’s most vilified peoples and which led to the most important milestones of the Cause.