Aboriginal Australian Biographies
Anthony Fernando - Disgusted with Australia, from about 1890 he publicized the Aboriginal cause overseas. In the following decades he travelled through Asia to Europe, working as a welder, toymaker, jewelry-maker, trader and servant
Charles Perkins - Charles Nelson Perkins was an Aboriginal Australian activist, soccer player and administrator. It is claimed he was the first known Indigenous Australian man to graduate tertiary education.
Faith Bandler - During World War II, Bandler and her sister Kath served in the Australian Women’s Land Army, working on fruit farms. After being discharged in 1945, she started to campaign for equal pay for indigenous workers.
Tom Mosby - Tom Mosby is the CEO of the Koorie Heritage Trust, a Cultural Centre, gallery and education space located in Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD.
Harold Blair - Harold Blair (13 September 1924 – 21 May 1976) was an Australian tenor and Aboriginal activist. He has been called the “last great Australian tenor of the concert hall era”
Oodgeroo Noonuccal - Oodgeroo Noonuccal born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.
David Unaipon - David attended the mission school from the age of 7. In 1885 he left to become a servant to C. B. Young who encouraged his interest in philosophy, science and music.
Pearl Gibbs - Pearl Mary (Gambanyi) Gibbs (18 July 1901 – 28 April 1983) was an Indigenous Australian activist, and the most prominent female activist within the Aboriginal movement in the early 20th century.
John Thomas (Jack) Patten - By 1930 Patten lived at Salt Pan Creek, an Aboriginal community near Sydney, where he absorbed radical Aboriginal politics. He organized political groups among Aborigines along the south and north coast.
Douglas Grant - In January 1916 Grant enlisted as a private in the 34th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, but when his unit was about to leave for overseas service he was discharged because of regulations preventing Aboriginal people leaving the country without government approval.
Paul Coe - Paul Coe (born 4 February 1949), a Wiradjuri man born at Erambie Mission in Cowra, is an Australian Aboriginal activist. He is known for his advocacy of Aboriginal rights, with involvement in the publicity drive for the 1967 referendum, and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972
William Townsend (Bill) Onus - William Townsend Onus Jnr (15 November 1906 – 10 January 1968) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, designer, and showman, also known for his boomerang-throwing skills. He was father of artist Lin Onus.
Reg Saunders - Enlisting as a soldier in 1940, he saw action during the Second World War in North Africa, Greece and Crete, before being commissioned as a lieutenant and serving as a platoon commander in New Guinea during 1944–1945.
Margret Tucker - Margaret Lilardia Tucker was an Aboriginal Australian activist and writer who was among the first Aboriginal authors to publish an autobiography, in 1977. In the 1930s Tucker began campaigning for Indigenous rights with William Cooper, Bill Onus and Douglas Nicholls and in 1932 was one of the founding members of the Australian Aborigines’ League.
William Cooper - William Cooper (18 December 1860 or 1861 – 29 March 1941) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist and community leader; the first to lead a national movement recognised by the Australian Government.
Stan Grant - As a television personality, Stan was encouraged to act as a role model for Aboriginal people in prisons, schools, and depressed communities. He felt uncomfortable in this role, because his elevated circumstances separated him from the people he was supposed to help
Anita Heiss - In 1995 Anita won an overseas study award through the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, which gave her the opportunity to complete research and work experience at two Native newspapers in Canada.
Dr. Vinka Barunga - Vinka Barunga will be the first Aboriginal doctor in her hometown. She is one of six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical graduates in her year
Leonard Waters - Leonard Victor (Len) Waters (20 June 1924 – 24 August 1993) was the first Aboriginal Australian military aviator, and the only one to serve as a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II
Michael O’loughlin - Michael Kevin O’Loughlin (born 20 February 1977) is a former professional Australian rules footballer, who played his entire Australian Football League career with the Sydney Swans. O’Loughlin was named a member of the Indigenous Team of the Century. He was the third player with Indigenous heritage to play 300 AFL games.
Ella Havelka - Ella Havelka (born 1989) is an Australian ballet dancer who is the first Indigenous person to join The Australian Ballet.
The Stafford Brothers - From 1915 to 1918, three brothers from the Stafford family – Charles Fitzroy, Clyde Gilford Ortley and John Harold, enlisted and served in the Australian Light Horse as part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in the First World War
Linda Burney - Linda Jean Burney (born 25 April 1957) is an Australian politician who is an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing Barton since the 2016 federal election. She is Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Albanese ministry, and the first woman who identifies as Aboriginal to serve in that position
Marion Scrymgour - Marion has worked to improve the health and economic opportunities of Territorians. In recognition of her tireless work, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Health Sciences from the University of Sydney in 2013
Shireen Morris - Shireen Morris researches, teaches and publishes in constitutional law and constitutional reform, Indigenous constitutional recognition, as well as public law more generally, specialising in the concept of a First Nations constitutional voice.
Josephine Cashman - Cashman is a lawyer and businesswoman, and was an inaugural member of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Indigenous Advisory Council in 2017. She addressed a UN Human Rights Council session focusing on violence against Indigenous girls and women.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price - Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price (born 12 May 1981) is an Australian politician from the Northern Territory. She has been a senator for the Northern Territory since the 2022 federal election. She sits with the National Party in federal parliament.
Adam Goodes - Adam Roy Goodes (born 8 January 1980) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL). Goodes holds an elite place in VFL/AFL history as a dual Brownlow Medalist, dual premiership player, four-time All-Australian, member of the Indigenous Team of the Century and representative of Australia in the International Rules Series.
Gary Foley- Gary Edward Foley (born 1950) is an Aboriginal Australian activist of the Gumbaynggirr people, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s.