Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT)
The Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) (ALS), known also as Aboriginal Legal Service, is a community-run organisation in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, founded in 1970 to provide legal services to Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders and based in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern. It now has branches across NSW and ACT, with its head office in Castlereagh Street, Sydney and a branch office in Regent Street, Redfern. The service was Australia’s first free legal service, setting the model for community legal aid, community legal centres and Aboriginal services Australia-wide. History Gary Foley later wrote that the Aboriginal Legal Service had its roots in the Australian Black Power movement. This movement had emerged in Redfern, Sydney, Fitzroy, Melbourne, and South Brisbane, following the Freedom Ride led by Charles Perkins in 1965, and was amplified after media reporting on the talk on Black Power given by Caribbean activist Roosevelt Brown in Melbourne in 1968 at the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, led by Bruce McGuinness and Bob Maza. In 1970, a public meeting was held at St Luke's Presbyterian Church, Redfern, to propose an organisation which becomes the Aboriginal Legal Service. Aboriginal activists and lawyers, including Paul Coe, Isabel