| Charles Perkins |
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He was educated at Le Fevre Boys’ Technical School, Adelaide , the Metropolitan Business College, Sydney and the University Of Sydney from where he graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor Of Arts . He married Eileen Munchenberg on September 23 1961 and had two daughters (Hetti and Rachel) and one son (Adam). Charles had 11 brothers and sisters. In 1964 he was one of the key people involved in the Freedom Ride - a bus tour by activists through northern New South Wales rural towns publicising discrimination against Aboriginal people in small-town Australia . In 1981 he was made head of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, the first Aborigine to become a permanent head of a federal government department. Perkins was awarded Jaycees Young Man of the Year in 1966, Aborigine of the Year in 1993 and the Order Of Australia in 1987. Throughout his career he was a strident critic of Australian Government 's policies on indigenous affairs and was renowned for his fiery comments. He was also notable as having the world's longest recorded survival for a kidney transplant, having received a donor kidney in 1972. He was inducted in to the Football Federation Australia Football Hall Of Fame , and was one of the first Aboriginals to play professional soccer and was appointed Australian Soccer Federation vice-president in 1987. FURTHER READING
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