The Missing Pastor

​Why on earth would the man who was highly respected as a civil rights leader, cheered as a champion footballer, selected as the first indigenous State Governor, honoured with an MBE for his service to his people and knighted by the Queen, insist that his most important title was ‘Pastor’? 
 
It’s really intrigued me that the enormous publicity surrounding the two rounds of AFL football set aside in May to celebrate him, chose to call him only “ ____ Sir Douglas Nicholls’. Why the edit? Perhaps the humble descriptor ‘pastor’ was just too awkward for the hype.
  
That sent me searching for the reasons why the multi-talented Doug singled this out as the title that best described his career. Here’s what I discovered. 

First, he grew up at Maloga on the Murray River in a community built by courageous Christian couple Daniel and Janet Matthews, who invested time, money and love creating a sanctuary there for the harassed indigenous peoples of NSW. *
 
It was here Doug was nurtured in the home of his uncle, Mauritian Indian teacher/evangelist Thomas Shadrach James who made his school an incubator for training Aboriginal leaders like William Cooper and Bill Onus to stand up and fight for their civil rights. ** At fourteen he moved away from these influences seeking work and gaining recognition as a runner, boxer and AFL footballer.
 
A few years later his Christian mother Florence took him to Northcote Church of Christ in Melbourne and introduced him to Pastor Dick Saunders. Over a period of four years, Dick not only encouraged him to make Jesus the centre of his life and further his education, but coached him to become a lay preacher. This personal investment stamped the dignity of the title ‘Pastor’ in Doug’s thinking and launched his lifelong career as a lively, sought-after public speaker.
 
Then, outspoken activist William Cooper, also an uncle of Doug’s, would regularly walk nine kilometres from Footscray to wait outside the Fitzroy Football Ground, just to recruit him to the Australian Aborigines’ League. The champion footballer attributed his career as a civil rights leader to being ‘pastored’ this strong Christian man. “You’ve got through to the whites, Doug”, he would say; “they listen to you. Now you have to start wobbling your tongue on behalf of your own people. Lead them to better things.” Doug was emphatic. “It was William sticking to me … that fired me. I can see it now … Everything comes back to [him] … he fired me to follow through.”
 
It was no surprise then to find Doug among the small band of activists who took a stand at the Sydney parade marking 150 years of settlement on Australia Day 1938 demanding citizenship rights. It became a landmark moment for Australia’s Aboriginal people.  He was flanked by two men of Christian calibre, William Ferguson and William Cooper who, like the famous pastor, Reverend Martin Luther King, a quarter of a century later showed that bold Christian faith was not an impediment.  Doug declared his personal conviction that day in plain terms. ‘After 150 years our people are still influenced and bossed by white people. I know we can proudly hold our own with others if given the chance’.
 
He worked tirelessly over the next thirty years to realise that dream. In 1939 Aboriginal people had shifted in increasing numbers to Fitzroy and Doug was withdrawn from the Army to serve his community. Two years later, when churches in Sydney opened their platforms and invited Aboriginal leaders to speak, Doug was a lively performer.  
 
In 1942 it was the Northcote Church of Christ that stepped up to back him, renting him a Sunday School Hall and recognising him as a pastor. Over the next 27 years Pastor Doug’s church provided vital spiritual and social support to a congregation of Indigenous Australians navigating city life. He developed it into more than a place of worship. It became a hub for training in practical Christian service emphasizing welfare, activism and reconciliation.
 
To combat the problem of Aboriginal homelessness, he formed a committee, which became the Aborigines’ Advancement League to help raise funds for the purchase. In effect, he co-pastored with his wife Gladys who taught Sunday school, undertook fundraising, managed the church’s finances and was a leading spokesperson on women’s rights. She organised a hostel for Aboriginal girls opened in 1958 and 1962 a similar hostel for boys was begun, followed in 1967 by the ‘Douglas Nicholls Centre’ containing recreational and meeting facilities.
 
 Doug’s insistence on acceptance and reconciliation when crusading for Aboriginal rights has Jesus’ stamp about it. He asked white people: “…is there a reason why we should not march beside you?  Do you extend to us the hand of friendship?”  I suspect this was a deciding factor that, when looking for a new Governor, South Australia turned to Pastor Doug.
Contemplating being knighted by the Queen, he was absolutely unashamed of announcing his core belief. “Jesus made me a great footballer, and now Jesus will take me to Buckingham Palace.”
 
It seems right to me that this needs to be placed centre stage – not shuffled into in the background. Thirty years later it's Doug’s pastoral legacy that remains most visible.
 

• His church was declared a heritage site in 2020 by the Minister for planning with the words “Pastor Doug Nicholls and his wife Gladys turned this humble church into a place that galvanised the Aboriginal community in their fight for basic human rights.”
• The sculpture of the two of them outside Parliament in Melbourne captured the pastor’s characteristic gesture - his hand is held out permanently in welcome.
• Finally, he chose the mission cemetery at Cummeragunga where they began, as the last resting place for he and Lady Gladys. Here, Pastor Doug ‘s self-chosen epitaph makes his final declaration of the priorities in his life story and it’s not football fame, distinction as a leader in civil rights or even royal honour that he names. He says simply,

 
“WE PRESSED TOWARD THE MARK FOR THE PRIZE OF THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS”

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