3 days ago
Indigenous lawyer and human rights activist Paul Coe farewelled in Cowra
A founder of the Aboriginal Legal Service has been remembered as a "staunch, unyielding Wiradjuri man" who forged a new path in the fight for Aboriginal self-determination.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names and images of an Indigenous person who has died which is used with the permission of their family.
Around 400 people gathered today to farewell Wiradjuri elder Paul Coe at the Erambie Aboriginal Mission at Cowra in the NSW Central West, where he grew up.
The Aboriginal justice advocate and activist died on July 29, aged 76.
In his eulogy, Paul Coe Jr spoke of the harsh, traumatic conditions that his father grew up in under protectionist policies and how his grandparents fought to give his father an education.
He said his father moved to Sydney in the late 1960s following the 1967 referendum to initially try his luck as an athlete before considering a career in the arts.
But Mr Coe Jr said experiences of violence living in Redfern made his father realise that art was not going to be "good enough".
"You had to do it."
As an activist in Australian's Black Power movement, Mr Coe used the law to fight for Aboriginal land rights and was the first Aboriginal person to study law at the University of New South Wales.
He played a role in the establishment of the Aboriginal Legal Service in the early 1970s and then in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns outside Parliament House in Canberra in 1972.
Paul Coe Jr said his father's legal advocacy culminated in bringing legal action against the Commonwealth on behalf of the Wiradjuri people in 1979 over the dispossession of land by the British.
"Dad was asserting the sovereignty of Aboriginal people to this land. That same argument ripples across this land," he said.
While Mr Coe's land rights case was unsuccessful in the High Court, it laid the foundation for the influential 1992 Mabo decision that recognised native title.
Despite being disbarred in 1997, Mr Coe Jnr said his dad continued to advocate for Aboriginal sovereignty through teaching.
Family and fellow activists passionately addressed the crowd about the need to continue Mr Coe's legacy in the ongoing fight for Aboriginal rights.
Friend Lyall Munro Jr spoke of Mr Coe's "fortitude" when advocating for Aboriginal rights on the international stage.
"Pushing the rights of our people he didn't care who was in the audience, where they came from, or what they represented," Mr Munro Jr said.
Paul's sister Aunty Jenny Munro spoke of her brother's "warped" sense of humour, and called for the fight for self-determination to continue.
"Paul is a giant among the heroes because he saw it so clearly, so strongly, and articulated it so beautifully," Ms Munro said.
At the end of the service mourners took to the streets of Cowra in a funeral procession while calling for land rights and sovereignty to be recognised.
Mr Coe is survived by eight children and 10 grandchildren and extended family.
