Ted Fields buying a ticket at the Luxury Theatre (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy Tribune/SEARCH Foundation)

THE BEGINNING OF CHANGE

After visits between Sydney and Walgett a plan was made to desegregate the local cinema, the Luxury Theatre, where Aboriginal customers were only allowed to sit in the front row of the theatre on “the two-bob seats”. In August 1965 Harry Hall with his daughter Pattie, niece Lorna Hall, and Marie Peters together with Ted Fields and four SAFA students were sold tickets to the upstairs section of the cinema, but they were not allowed in.  They refused to leave the cinema and were arrested by the police. After negotiation between the activists, the police and the cinema owner, a week later more students and members of the Sydney APA arrived. Under the watchful eye of several hundred people and the police, Harry Hall and Ted Fields were sold tickets and allowed in the whites only section of the cinema.