Remembering assimilation: Queen Elizabeth II’s 1954 visit to Shepparton and a ‘new deal’ for Victorian Aboriginal people

This article considers the significance of Queen Elizabeth II’s 1954 visit to Shepparton, Victoria, to the history and memory of Aboriginal political activism in the era of assimilation. Using oral testimony, newspaper reports, and other archival sources, I describe the visit and ponder its prominent role in Yorta Yorta storytelling, which I suggest amounts to a type of ‘memory activism’. The article also discusses Victoria’s dysfunctional Aboriginal policy of the 1950s, which excluded mixed-race Aboriginal communities from its purview. The visit of the Queen is remembered as a transformational moment in Yorta Yorta history and is part of a longer history of Aboriginal people’s engagement with the monarchy through their activism.