Summary

Just Relations - The Story of Mary Bennett's Crusade for Aboriginal Rights

When Mary Bennett died in 1961, Australia lost one of its leading Aboriginal rights activists. Mary's crusade is still, sadly, a current one, and this book serves to historicise the ongoing struggle for Aboriginal rights through the lens of Mary's campaign.

By tracing Mary's advocacy from the 1920s, when the possibility of Aboriginal human rights was first mooted, to the 1960s, when an attempt was made to have the Aboriginal question raised before the United Nations, Just Relations charts a large portion of human rights history.

However, the book also tracks a discourse of needs, moral codes and sentiments and the urgent goal of keeping people alive. In this sense, then, Bennett's story demonstrates the close connection between the rise of humanitarianism as a political project and the rise of human rights.