Synopsis

Freedom Ride is part of a four-episode documentary by Rachel Perkins and Ned Lander. It tells a chapter of Charles Perkins' life, the father of Rachel. He grew up in Alice Springs in the late 1930s at a time when segregation was the rule.

During his education at the Technical School in Adelaide and the University of Sydney in the early 1960s he became increasingly aware of the injustices perpetrated against Australian Aboriginal people. In 1965, the year he graduated as the first Aboriginal man from university, Charles Perkins led the "Freedom Ride"

The Freedom Ride was a bus load of concerned white and black people, mostly university students, who visited several towns in rural and outback Australia to escalate the level of public awareness of racial intolerance in Australia.

This film documents their journey and talks to those who were part of the Freedom Ride, charting one of the most significant civil rights campaigns in Australian history.

Charles Perkins became one of Australia's most prolific Aboriginal activists.