Video: Charlie Knight on the national apology for the stolen generationsAT just 18 months old, Charlie Knight witnessed his father stab his mother.
The impact of this incident would separate his family and lead to years of sexual abuse and trauma.
Mr Knight is a descendant of the Ngarrindjeri people and member of the stolen generations.
He has endured years of searching for his identity and has established himself as a leader within Bendigo’s indigenous community.
“Beyond all that has happened to me, life has still got to go on, you surge forward,” Mr Knight said.
“You try to (push) the memories back... but they will always be there at the back of my mind, the back of my heart.
“But it is a healing point for me to talk about this. That is what heals me and I hope that this here will heal everyone else in Australia.
“Don’t be frightened to talk about it. Be strong, be yourself and be proud of who you are and where you’ve come from.”
Mr Knight was born in 1956 in regional South Australia.
His family shifted into the back of a Port Adelaide pub soon after his birth.
It was in Port Adelaide that his life would change forever.
“On this particular night my mother and father were arguing, fighting and that,” Mr Knight said.
“What I witnessed as a one-and-a-half-year-old child was my father stab my mother with a broken beer bottle.
“The next day we were snapped up by the Aboriginal Protection Board – these people just come and took us.
“Took me, my brother, my two sisters, just whipped us up and took us.”
Mr Knight and his brother stayed with a woman before going into an institution that was on a rural property 185 kilometres from Adelaide.
“I was aged about four when I was taken there from the foster home to there,” he said.
“Whilst in that foster home, that institution, I was sexually abused about four or five times by other males.
“Not only males but the workers that were in there.
“From there, I was taken to another foster home in ’63 and fostered out... I was traumatically whipped with a feather duster.
“If I had pooed my pants or wet my pants I would get a whipping with a feather duster.
“I would get slapped across the face with shoes. If I could not say a word properly, I would get slapped straight across the face with a pair of shoes.
“I endured that for years.”
Authorities separated Mr Knight and his brother and falsely told them their parents were dead.
He would spend years in the late ’60s trying to reunite with his brother, continually running away from his foster homes only to be caught and returned.
For 12 months, Mr Knight escaped to Queensland.
He returned to learn of his brother’s death in Victoria.
“That hurt me. That saddened me,” he said. “To this day, I have not forgotten it. I will always remember him. I remember his birth date, I remember the anniversary of his death.
“For what happened to me, it should never have been done to any child and I just hope the government realises now the facts of what has happened with the stolen generations.”
Mr Knight said he struggled trying to discover his identity as he matured. He said his marriage of 17 years, the birth of two children, one to a former de facto, and a grandchild had shaped him into the man he is today.
Mr Knight said it was crucial the community discussed what happened to the stolen generations.
“You hear it from a person who has been there, has been through it and survived it,” he said. “There are cases where a lot of young ones have committed suicide because of the facts.
“There are a lot that have turned to crime because of the facts maybe.
“It’s the way they were brought up, the way they were treated. Back then we were classed as servants (even) the little girls and boys. (But) look where we are now.”
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