IDNO

T.152443.RPT

Description

On Catalogue Card: "S.P. 260. Australia. 35mm. Koda." [Poignant's manuscript]
"35. Kath Walker (Aboriginal spirit woman), talks to Ros." [Poignant's typed text]

Place

Australasia; Australia; Queensland

Cultural Affliation

First Nations Australian [historically Aboriginal]

Named Person

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (also known as Kath Walker); Roslyn Poignant

Photographer

Poignant, Axel

Collector / Expedition

Date

pre January 1970

Collection Name

Poignant Collection

Source

Poignant, Roslyn

Format

Colour Transparency

Primary Documentation

Other Information

T.148696.RPT - T.152693.RPT were located in the drawer file of transparency sheets, numbered C1021/.

T.152437.RPT - T.152447.RPT were located in a transparency sheet, numbered C1021/158.

Biographical reference: Sue Abbey, 'Noonuccal, Oodgeroo (1920–1993)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
"Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) (1920–1993), black rights activist, poet, environmentalist, and educator, was born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska on 3 November 1920 at Bulimba, Brisbane, second youngest of seven children of Edward (Ted) Ruska, labourer, and his wife Lucy, née McCullough [...] In World War II, after her brothers Edward and Eric were captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Ruska enlisted in the Australian Women's Army Service on 28 July. [...] In the 1940s the Communist Party of Australia—the only political party without a White Australia policy, and which opposed racial discrimination—had attracted Walker. Through the party she gained skills in writing speeches, public speaking, committee planning, and political strategy, which 'stood me in good stead through life,' but she left because 'they wanted to write my speeches' (Mitchell 1987, 197). Writing prose and poetry, she joined the Brisbane Realist Writers Group. [...] At Jacaranda Press in Brisbane, Walker's poems found an advocate in submissions reader Judith Wright, who recommended publication. In 1964 We Are Going became the first poetry publication by an Aboriginal Australian. Despite the success of that book and The Dawn Is At Hand, which followed two years later, her work was dismissed by many critics as protest poetry. She would nevertheless win the Jessie Litchfield award for literature (1967), a Fellowship of Australian Writers award, and the Dame Mary Gilmore medal. Sales of her poetry were claimed to rank second to Australia's best-selling poet, C. J. Dennis. Two years before her first book, in 1962, Walker had been elected Queensland State secretary of the Federal Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement, while also a member of the Queensland Aboriginal Advancement League executive. She rose to the call for Aboriginal leadership and, in the early 1960s, travelled around Australia with FCAATSI delegates, among them Faith Bandler, (Sir) Douglas Nicholls, and Joe McGinness. Campaigning for equal citizenship rights, she met with cabinet ministers, led with Bandler a delegation to Prime Minister (Sir) Robert Menzies, and wrote and delivered speeches. The struggle culminated in the landmark 1967 referendum to empower the Federal government to legislate on Aboriginal affairs. This victory was particularly momentous in her home State, where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations lived under the all-encompassing authority of 'The Queensland Acts.' [...] Aged fifty, in 1971, suffering ill health and facing challenges for power from younger Aboriginal leaders, Walker returned to Minjerribah. Near One Mile, she assembled a gunyah—a traditional shelter—on negotiated leasehold land, the beginnings of a learning facility, and named it Moongalba (the sitting-down place). Her teaching of Aboriginal culture on country inspired thousands of school children—whom she saw as the bright future—as well as teachers and other visitors who made the barge trip across Moreton Bay. She published two children's books, Stradbroke Dreamtime (1972) and Father Sky and Mother Earth (1981)." [source: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/noonuccal-oodgeroo-18057 KK 24/08/2022]