As we celebrate NAIDOC Week, Australian Story delves into the largely untold story of Uncle Ossie Cruse, a driving force for Aboriginal rights for more than 50 years. With only a primary school education and having lived as an itinerant worker for years, Uncle Ossie stepped into the world of politics after the 1967 referendum, which saw Indigenous Australians counted in the census for the first time. He was a quiet but persistent negotiator with a knack for getting politicians to come to the table and to listen to the concerns of his people. He took his advocacy all the way to the United Nations and became a member of the World Council of Indigenous People. Now, at 83, Uncle Ossie is seeing a long-held dream come to fruition – the re-establishment of an ancient Aboriginal pathway stretching from the Snowy Mountains to the coast at Eden. It was where Aboriginal people first showed white settlers the safest way to the high country. Uncle Ossie describes it as a shared pathway that will bring divided cultures together in reconciliation – something he has been fighting for all his life.
