On This Day - May 28th 2000
250,000 people walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the People's Walk for Reconciliation during Corroboree 2000.
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of Australia including its nearby islands. The term encompasses the various indigenous peoples known as Aborigines, whose traditional lands extend throughout mainland Australia, Tasmania and offshore islands, and also the Torres Strait Islanders whose lands are centred on the Torres Strait Islands which run between northernmost Australia and the island of New Guinea. Ever since European settlement in 1788, tension has existed between Indigenous peoples and the Europeans, and the path to reconciliation between the various races has been long and slow.
28 May 2000 saw The People’s Walk for Reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a celebration of reconciliation which had been achieved thus far, and to symbolise the fact that reconciliation involves all Australians. It was held in conjunction with Corroboree 2000, which occurred in Sydney during Reconciliation Week in May 2000 to mark the end of the ten-year official Reconciliation process. The walk began at North Sydney station and finished at Darling Harbour, and involved some 250,000 people walking across Sydney's Harbour Bridge to show their support of the process of Reconciliation between Aboriginal Australians and white Australians.