'Big John' Buchanan folded himself into a cream mini outside the Empress Hotel around 10.15. For the last half hour he had strutted around the street like something out of Softly Softly accompanied by fifteen of his henchmen — eleven of them uniformed.

To the blacks of Sydney's deprived suburb of Redfern, this Saturday night was no different from an other, and Buchanan was no different from any other racist pig, except that he was the boss, the Inspector in charge of the Redfern district, the man who directed one of the most vicious police forces in Australia.

'Big John' drove off and the rest of the thugs clambered into their assembled vehicles — five in all. Two paddy wagons, a police mini and two plain minis. I overheard one say 'No arrests tonight'. 'No matter' said his mate, 'there will be plenty of other chances.'

The 'Empress' looks like a typical Sydney pub. It stands like a porcelain urinal among a number of shops. The bar is only a few feet from the street, the walls are tile and the floor plaster. A squirt with a hose and the whole show's clean. There are no chairs, the bar is the bottle store and you are tipped out dead on ten. But one thing makes the Empress unique — its a Black Pub and while Blacks drink in other Redfern/Chippendale pubs, white are cautious before entering the Empress.

Earlier that day I had wandered around the suburb with one of the local white radicals. We didn't go into the pub then, we waited until 9.30 when we were with a Black women and a young Jewish lawyer who was working on behalf on the locals. To the stranger there didn't seem to be any reason to worry. No one bothered us, there were a few other whites in the bar and we got touched for a couple of bob. It was four beers later at 10.00 that I noticed the difference.

Buchanan's fifteen cops had arranged themselves over the footpath. No once [sic] could walk either way without having to zig zag to miss the pigs. Their whole posture and positioning was deliberately provocative, they were out for arrests.

But Friday and Saturday nights are no longer the sole preserve of the cops. A "pub patrol" of liberals, Catholics and radicals was there to watch the place. For some time now they have been patrolling, determined to record every incident and inhibit the pigs.

This night it worked.

The previous night it hadn't.

Apartheid Minus the Passbooks

My first introduction to Redfern came only a few minutes after I visited a radical flat. Nine Blacks, three girls and five boys and an older black were brought in for a cup of coffee by the young lawyer. They had been picked up for trespass when they were sleeping in some backyard. None of them had anywhere to live. What few possessions they had, had either been stolen by the police or left where they were picked up. Not yet sober they had been charged, appeared before the magistrate and remanded for three days.

Several were from Queensland. They couldn't return. All had been convicted there and were subject to Queensland's laws under which they were bound to live on reservations as directed by the Government. A situation no different from South Africa — only the Passbook was missing. The old fellow kept talking about his canvas paintings — they were missing. So was his bankbook with the record of his sixty dollars, so was his set of teeth. It was not anticipated that the police would be returning any of the missing gear.

An hour or so later the leader of the local Black development project arrived. For an hour he talked, quietly but firmly. His approach was essentially integrationalist. He saw the present as offering opportunities to break through in white society. I was told that his views would represent the views of 90—95% of Blacks. Even those who were on the receiving end of his advice tended to judge success in terms of a good job and education. After an hour or so the nine blacks were told that a bed had been found and that efforts would be made to find jobs. But the warning was there. They were being assisted by a Black self-help project — if they didn't shape up then the welfare of the total community would not be sacrificed for them.

I don't think it is easy for any black leader to put it on his brothers and sisters like that. But that is the only choice they have in Redfern. In order to establish the community spirit, in order to establish a local development programme they have had to fight the South Sydney Council, the Federal Government, the local white citizens and the despair among their own people that had grown out of 150 years of being kicked by the whites.

Loving Thy Neighbour

Last year a number of blacks from the same area came to town and lived in the Catholic Presbytery. They were soon overcrowded so they started to squat in a row of squalid houses nearby. Community reaction by the whites was hostile and when a couple of Blacks started to negotiate with the developer who owned the houses the whites organised a petition. For a couple of weeks things were tense. The whites were uppity, the Council wanted the Blacks out. However the liberals moved in. The T.V. carried news. The Nation Review paper carried a sympathetic story and the new Labour Government arrived on the doorstep. They forked out half a million dollars and gave the deeds to the Black development group. The Council backed off and the leaders of the white protest either lost their guts or came round.

The development is now permanent. It will be used as a transit camp. All the back fences are down and the houses are being renovated, more Blacks are finding accomodation in the vicinity and are relating to the community concept which focusses on the development. For the Blacks the next steps seem fairly well defined.