Lyall Munro Snr

A Kamilaroi (or Komeroi; pronounced gomeroi ) man, he was a descendant of victims of the Myall Creek massacre in 1838.

He had little formal education, and grew up in a world where racial segregation was practised.

Munro was an avid advocate for Indigenous land rights throughout his life, interacting with prime ministers and other leaders, and addressed forums on the international stage.

He tried to change systems that incorporated systemic racism in Australia, fighting for equality in education and employment.

Lyall Munro Snr (30 September 1931– 21 May 2020), also known as Uncle Lyall Munro Senior, was an Aboriginal Australian activist, leader, and elder, especially known for his advocacy of Indigenous land rights.

He was the husband of Carmine "Maggie" Munro, and father of Lyall Munro Jnr.

Lyall Munro was born on 30 September 1931 in Tingha, New South Wales.

Munro and his father were given Australian citizenship in 1947.

In 1950 he moved to Moree, New South Wales, as a junior foreman on the railways.

At that time, Aboriginal people were not allowed in pubs or clubs or at the Moree swimming baths, or to walk on the sidewalk, or play football in the local team.

the local cinema was segregated - Blacks had to sit in the front rows.

Munro was allowed to go to pubs and do things that the local Aboriginal people were prohibited from doing, because of having citizenship rights, and started playing football in the local team.

He got a lot of advice from the local elders in Moree, and realised that he could help his people attain the same rights as he enjoyed.

He later got involved in the Moree Aboriginal Advancement Committee, which was made up of 8–10 Europeans, and became secretary there.

Munro was in Moree when the Freedom Ride led by Charlie Perkins visited the town in February 1965.

The purpose of the group of Aboriginal activists and white students, who travelled around rural towns in regional New South Wales in an old bus, was to raise awareness about racial segregation in these towns.

The bus arrived in Moree on 19 February.

The Freedom Riders collected a number of children from the local mission, including nine-year-old Dan Moree (son of Lyall Snr, brother of Lyall Jnr), and tried to gain entry into the Moree Swimming Baths.

In 1969 Munro was elected to the NSW Aboriginal Advisory Council, a body which gave advice to the NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs after the Aborigines Welfare Board had been dismantled.

He was a founding member of the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service in the 1970s, and later the Legal Aid Commission, which was based on the ALS model.

With the Aboriginal Legal Service, Munro took part in rallies protesting the mining of asbestos by the James Hardie Company on the NSW North Coast at Baryulgil.

He was a member of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC, founded 1973), which later became the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC).

As an executive member of the NAC, Munro undertook treaty negotiations with the Fraser government (1975–1983).

This organisation was sidelined and then abolished, after the NSW Aboriginal Land Council was created in 1977 and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 made this organisation a statutory body.

Munro was not part of this new younger "land rights mob".

He led a land rights march in Sydney in the 1980s.

He was a strong advocate of truth telling, as a means to forge a new Australian national identity.

In 1981, Munro played a key role in Australia's hosting of the Third General Assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) in Canberra, and in the 1980s became an executive member of the WCIP.

He contributed to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987–1991).

In a 2014 interview with NSWALC, he said that he felt that the movement needed to be re-energised and emulate the radicalism of the 1970s.

Munro told NITV in 2017 that he and the Moree Aboriginal Advancement Committee had been fighting to change the town's segregationist by-laws for years before the Freedom Riders arrived, but not in a confrontational way.

"...So we stood and watched in the crowd. It was their day and it was an ugly scene, pretty rowdy, pretty wild — a lot of violence".

The event was widely covered by the media at home and internationally, and it caught the attention of the Australian public, proving to be a "seminal moment" in the history of Australia.

A public meeting took place in the town afterwards, and the decision was taken to lift the colour bar on the pool.

He served the community in Moree in many ways.

He was on the hospital board for 10 years, and held positions in the Moree Aboriginal Sobriety House, Moree Local Aboriginal Land Council, and many housing organisations.

He helped to found important local organisations, including the Pius X Aboriginal Corporation, Aboriginal Homecare, and the Aboriginal Employment Strategy.

Munro was member of the NSW Aboriginal Lands Trust, which had land passed to it by the government as well as having some bequeathed to it in private individuals' wills.

They were successful in winning hunting and fishing rights over some lands, won land, including many of the Aborigines Welfare Board's Aboriginal reserves without having to go to court, by negotiation with the minister.

They were successful in getting Kinchela Boys' Home and Cootamundra Girls' Home closed, and also encouraged young people to be initiated into their peoples' cultures.