Lionel Rose was one of Australia's best boxers. He was born in 1948 in a small aboriginal settlement called Jackson's Track 

When he was growing up he studied his dad who was a boxer also. He ended up winning his first Australian amateur flyweight title when he was just fifteen.

One of Lionel's greatest thrills was winning a world title. amazingly Lionel was the first boxer is the world to do this. After Rose missed out  on the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 Lionel turned pro and was trained by a Melbourne trainer called Jack Renee.

  Rose entered in a fight against Rocky Gattallari at Sydney Stadium.  Everybody was behind Rocky but when Lionel knocked him out in the thirteenth round the crowd had a new hero.

When Rose went to Japan to fight Harada , he already had five defense titles  to his belt. Before the match, Harada had been given information that if you hit an aboriginal in the back of the knees,  he would fall in pain.  He ignored this and hit him in the head. This had no effect. In the ninth round, Harada had dropped to his knees after a short left punch to the head, and cranked his total of wins to 28 wins out of 30 professional fights. He lost his title to Ruben Olivares of Mexico  in 1968, the year after he became the World Bantamweight Champion.

After Lionel  lost to Ruben Olivares he gave his world  title belt to Tjandamurra O'Shane to help him recover from the attack on him.

Lionel Rose lost the World Title Fight in 1969, he retired in 1970 and tried to come back in 1975 and 1976. Lionel Rose has won more money then any other Australian fighter.                                                   

After serving time in jail, Lionel Rose started working for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and goes around the country encouraging aboriginal people.

In 1968 Lionel Rose was named Australian of the Year, the first aboriginal to do so.