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This year we have the unusual event or NAIDOC and Remembrance Day (today) coinciding. Therefore this is a perfect moment to remember the Black Diggers, Aboriginal soldiers who fought for Australia in world war 1 and 2 but were not citizens or considered equal to other veterans.
My own grandfather was a black digger. In 2015 his grave was unmarked, which is unimaginable for a non-Aboriginal digger. I found out then that this was common, unmarked graves of black diggers, not given a veterans memorial.
When the black diggers returned they were not given war pensions, were not allowed to join the RSL and were not given soldiers settlement land. Often the soldiers settlement land was taken from Aboriginal “reservations” to give to only white soldiers.
Oral history states that in WA Blak children were taken from their parents because their fathers were away, fighting someone else’s war.
My second novel, with @HachetteAus The Old Lie is inspired by the maltreatment of the black diggers. #LestWeForget 
#rememberTheBlackDiggers #BlackDiggers.
#rememberTheBlackDiggers #BlackDiggers.
#LestWeForget #theBlackDiggers #rememberTheBlackDiggers #TheOldLie
@HachetteAus https://www.hachette.com.au/claire-g-coleman/the-old-lie
#theBlackDiggers #rememberTheBlackDiggers #TheOldLie @HachetteAus https://www.hachette.com.au/claire-g-coleman/the-old-lie
Telling the forgotten stories of Indigenous servicemen in the first world war https://theconversation.com/telling-the-forgotten-stories-of-indigenous-servicemen-in-the-first-world-war-114277?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton via @ConversationEDU
From the above article
Aboriginal Diggers 'couldn't even get a beer in a pub' https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1449559/aboriginal-diggers-couldnt-even-get-a-beer-in-a-pub/ via @illawarramerc
Things were even worse after the Boer war. Officers took their Blak servants to South Africa and after the war those blak fellas were refused return to Australia under the white Australia policy. They were abandoned in Africa and forgotten #lestweforget
