Return to Uluru: The Hidden History of a Murder in Outback Australia

In this gripping account, Australian author McKenna (From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories) sheds new light on an act of racial injustice nearly a hundred years ago. Even into this century, Bill McKinnon, who died in 1997 at age 94, was known as a lauded policeman whose exploits as a frontier camel patroller in Australia’s outback were the stuff of legends and books. But the reality, McKenna discovered, was much darker and became a flash point for changes in the government’s treatment of Aboriginal people. In 1934, McKinnon led a patrol to the sacred landmark called Uluru in pursuit of six escaped Aboriginal prisoners. While three managed to flee, two more were apprehended, and one, Yokununna, was shot and killed by McKinnon in what he claimed was self-defense. Though an inquiry exonerated McKinnon, his treatment of native tribesmen came under scrutiny. But it wasn’t until McKenna discovered the officer’s original logbooks in 2016 that the truth came out. It was cold-blooded murder. The author vividly details the history of white settlers’ sins against the Aboriginals and the legends of the sacred sandstone formation that’s both the center of Australia geographically and spiritually. This eye-opening exposé of an official whitewash delivers the goods. (July)