Chicka Dixon

Charles ‘Chicka’ Dixon (1928–2010), Yuin Elder, Aboriginal rights activist and social pioneer, was born at Wallaga Lake on the New South Wales south coast. Dixon moved to Sydney as a teenager and became interested in Aboriginal rights after hearing Yorta Yorta activist Jack Patten speak in 1946. Dixon worked as a builders' labourer and seasonal worker before becoming a stevedore on the Sydney wharves and rising to political prominence as an organiser for the Seaman’s Union. In the 1960s he was spokesperson for the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and campaigned for the 1967 Referendum. Charles Perkins asked him to help mediate with courts on behalf of Aboriginal people on trial; their activities were to evolve into Redfern's Aboriginal Legal Service in 1970. He was one of the founders of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 and soon after led the Aboriginal delegation to China. A foundation member of the Australia Council's Aboriginal Arts Board, Dixon was its Chairman from 1983 to 1986 and the first Aboriginal member of the Australia Council. In these capacities he lobbied for major reforms in Indigenous arts funding and administration; he also took an interest in Aboriginal country and western musicians, organising festivals and talent quests around Australia, including its prisons. A reformed alcoholic, after working with Fred Hollows and others to establish the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service he advocated for effective programs for treating substance abuse. Dixon died aged 81 from asbestosis after exposure to asbestos on the Sydney wharves.