Eddie Mabo Library to open at Townsville’s James Cook University
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008Padraic Murphy; 21/5/08
From any garden, great things can grow. But who would have thought a chance conversation between two academics and a groundsman at a Townsville university would one day change the course of Australian history? Eddie Mabo taught himself English by reading dictionaries while working on pearl luggers in the Torres Strait, and had little formal education. But the man who forced the recognition of native title will today have the university library from which he launched the land rights movement named in his honour. The Eddie Koiki Mabo Library at James Cook University in Townsville, to be opened today by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, will celebrate Mabo’s place as one of the most significant figures in Australian history.
