A CROWD waving Aboriginal flags has lined St Kilda Road in Melbourne to send off Indigenous elder and storyteller Uncle Jack Charles after his state funeral.<\/p>\n
The actor, musician, activist, and member of the stolen generations died at Royal Melbourne Hospital on 13 September after suffering a stroke. He was 79.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, Hamer Hall was at capacity for his memorial service, which featured didgeridoos, drag queens and dozens of songs and stories about Charles.<\/p>\n
“Onya Jack, I knew you’d get a packed house for your last show mate,” said Professor Gary Foley.<\/p>\n
One of the hosts of the event, Ari Maza Long, said his grandfather had started\u00a0Australia’s first Aboriginal theatre company, Nindethana Theatre, with Charles in 1971.<\/p>\n
“Today’s service will be one of prestige, stories, colour, song – and it wouldn’t be Uncle Jack without a little bit of cheekiness too,” he said.<\/p>\n
Charles\u2019 coffin was adorned with bright Indigenous designs, and sat onstage atop eucalyptus branches next to a small smoking fire.<\/p>\n
His red scooter was parked nearby.<\/p>\n
The two-and-a-half- hour service was filled with music, with Kutcha Edwards, Dan Sultan, Cash Savage, Uncle Bart Willoughby, Emma Donovan, James Henry and the Choir of Hard Knocks among the performers.<\/p>\n
Proceedings were interrupted by drag queens making their way onstage, with Mora Money and Joo Cee performing Everybody’s Free<\/em>.<\/p>\n Victorian minister\u00a0Colin Brooks, who paid tribute on behalf of Premier Dan Andrews, said Charles was the first Indigenous elder to speak at the Yoorrook Justice Commission earlier in the year.<\/p>\n “It was only right that the first person to share his story was the finest storyteller of them all,” he said.<\/p>\n At the commission, Charles spoke about being taken from his mother as a four-month-old and growing up in the Salvation Army’s Box Hill Boys’ Home, where he was sexually abused and taunted.<\/p>\n “To learn of his journey as a survivor of the stolen generation is to learn of a man who faced bitter hardship from the day he was born,” Mr Brooks said.<\/p>\n Filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson, who made a documentary about Charles,\u00a0said the late 79-year-old would truly listen to people, whether they were family, friends, or drunk strangers on the street.<\/p>\n “He gave people space to be themselves and he met them on their terms, in a way that afforded them unique dignity,” he said.<\/p>\n