Nonee Walsh

ABC Online

The Aboriginal activist and trade unionist Chicka Dixon has been laid to rest in southern Sydney after a state funeral at Sydney Town Hall attended by federal and state politicians, the judiciary and hundreds of family and friends.

Charles Dixon, who was known as "Chicka", died at the age of 81 after a long career of political activism.

Mr Dixon rose to political prominence as a member of the Waterside Workers Federation and was heavily involved in the decade-long campaign for the 1967 referendum to include Indigenous people in the census.

He was also an active participant of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy of 1972 and played a major part in establishing the Aboriginal Legal Service and Indigenous arts organisations.

The New South Wales Minister for Community Services, Linda Burney, the only Indigenous member of the New South Wales Parliament, said Mr Dixon was born in the year of the last recorded massacre of Aboriginal people, at Coniston in the Northern Territory.

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