Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993), also known by her Anglo name Kath Walker, was raised on Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), where she learnt Aboriginal customs from her community, before leaving to work in Brisbane at 13. She worked in domestic service for less pay than her white counterparts and was rejected for nurse’s training because of her Aboriginal descent.

She is the aunt of Darcel Russell.

Activist/artist

During the 1940s Oodgeroo joined the Communist Party of Australia where she learnt political strategy, and how to write and deliver speeches. She also began to write her own prose and poetry. As a single mother, Oodgeroo took up domestic work once again, working for prominent doctors Sir Raphael Cilento and Lady Phyllis Cilento. The Cilento’s eldest daughter, artist Margaret Cilento, painted this striking portrait of Oodgeroo.

By 1964 Oodgeroo’s first volume of poetry, ‘We Are Going’, was the first book by an Aboriginal woman to be published and was an immediate commercial success. She continued to receive accolades for her writing and activism work, including being appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the community in 1970. She returned it in 1987 to protest the bicentenary celebrations of white settlement, subsequently adopting the name Oodgeroo (meaning “paperbark”).

Oodgeroo wrote a number of books, essays, speeches and collections of poetry throughout her career, as well as establishing an education centre on Minjerribah to teach Aboriginal culture on country. She also drew and painted—an artwork by Oodgeroo can be seen at ‘New Woman’, an exhibition of Brisbane women artists over the last century, alongside Margaret Cilento’s portrait of this inspiring figure in Brisbane’s history.