The University of Queensland

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Poster - Rally for Peace Committee

"Joh must go", 22 October 1983, image from Bacon collection

Fryer Library has extensive collections in Queensland political history. A strength is the history of radical politics. This exhibition provides many references to ephemera, manuscripts and books held in the Fryer Library.

Some of the collection can be reviewed from the following online resources:

• Manuscript collections - Radical politics - Subject list

Many of these manuscript collections have links to online lists of full descriptions of their contents. For those that do not, a printed list is available for consultation in Fryer Library.

• Publications of political organisations in Queensland: held in University of Queensland Libraries, Joy Guyatt - bibliography; Greg George - historical notes. St. Lucia, Fryer Library, 1983
• Radical Protest and Street Marches in Brisbane, 1960-1980 - Photographs from the Grahame Garner collection documenting radical protest and street marches in Brisbane.

Many Fryer resources were shown in the Museum of Brisbane's 2006 exhibition
Taking to the streets : two decades that changed Brisbane. Film documentaries prepared for that exhibition are available at UQ and other libraries. Excerpts from and reflections on Taking to the Streets can be found in the Queensland Review, 14(1), 2007.

These collections are growing. Additions to the existing politics collections occur on an ongoing basis. Audio and video tapes of interviews and discussions with UQ radicals will be added to the collection in the future (and in some cases will be available online). Further film records of events may become available. New strengths are anticipated, for example in environmental politics. The Fryer Library is interested in donations that cover the recent decades of student and radical politics, in order fill large gaps for that period.

The high-tide of UQ activism was from 1966, with a fading away in the early seventies. For a strong narrative sense of the period the best source is a contemporary chronology covering 1966 to 1974. Fryer has two versions, for this online exhibition Fryer has combined these to fill gaps and made the merged record available digitally » Chronology.

The best overview of the movement is Mark Young's "A historical portrait of the new student Left at the University of Queensland 1966-1972", which still stands up as a sound preliminary analysis.

Two contemporary accounts provide excellent snapshots of the radicals' makeup, attitudes and their familial, school and university experiences (Rootes) and intellectual influences (Prentice). Both authors were very active participants in the events:

• Rootes, Christopher A. "Australian student radicals : the nature and origins of dissent". B.A.Hons., University of Queensland. Rootes continued his academic work in this field. See for example "Protest, social movements, revolution?", Social Alternatives v.4, no. 1, 1984, pp. 4-8 and "The Civil liberties campaign in Queensland: lessons for the future", Social Alternatives, v.3, no.2, 1983, p.55-60
• Prentice, James, "The New Left", M.A. (qual.), University of Queensland. See also his "Remembering the Brisbane protests, 1965-72: The civil liberties movement", Queensland Review, v.14, no.1, 2007, p.25-37

A small selection from some of the manuscript material held in Fryer is available in "A left compilation: a selection of political material from S.D.A., the Labor Club and FOCO between 1967-1969"

Amongst the manuscript material held by Fryer the Dan O'Neill collection, UQFL132 is the most comprehensive reflection of the early growth and the high tide of activism.

Amongst the collections in Fryer a good sampling of the S.D.A. period is found in the Geoff Dalton-Morgan ephemera, F3235. A good sampling of the later period is found in Ephemera from University of Queensland political groups 1971 - 1975, F3315. Another very handy small collection of material is that collected by Megan McMurchy, Political action 1967-1969 F846.

University Archives holds films of events such as the 'Quang incident' and extensive collections of photographs taken by University Security at the time.

A scan across the student press is available in the 50th anniversary edition of Semper, October 1982, which has excerpts from issues from 1932 onwards. It also has some useful extras, such as a list of all editors and their 'subsequent occupation' and photographs of some, lists of editorial themes by year, and a bibliography of Semper articles that document or analyse student politics which we reproduce here.

Fryer also holds two collections of press clippings one collected by the University, which runs from 1911 to 2000. This focuses on the University in the news. The other is a microfilm of the Government Department Newspaper Room clippings which covers all aspects of Queensland politics from 1966 to 1985.

Fryer also holds the records of the University of Queensland Union up to 1988, UQFL194 including the student bodies that preceded it.

Reason in Revolt is an online collection of primary sources on Australian radicalism. The collection is not at all comprehensive. It has only recently begun with a Australian Research Council Discovery Grant. There is a section on student activism at: http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/biogs/E000477b.htm

Some histories of radicalism at other Australian campuses have been written, usually by participants. Some are published, some are unpublished theses. One general history unfortunately deals mostly with Adelaide but it is a useful source on some national aspects of the student movement. It also has a useful chapter on student activism since 1985 - "It can't happen here: a political history of Australian student activism". There is a chapter on student activism and other relevant sections in the book Radical Brisbane, which insipired the "Taking to the Streets" exhibition.

In general the student movements in other countries, Asia for example, seem to have been more actively researched than the Australian movements. However histories of peace, environmental, women's, black and gay movements often touch on aspects of student activism. Many of these are written within the framework of social movement theory. They tend therefore to trace the deeper currents of cultural change that began in the sixties with the student new left. Histories, memoirs and analyses of the American movement are numerous. Many of these reflect on the mistakes and virtues of the new left, and its longer term ramifications. Some analyses and reflections of a similar nature have appeared in Australia, for example David McKight's Beyond right and left : new politics and the culture wars.

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