NAIDOC Week 4-11 July 2021

The history of what we know now as the weeklong celebrations of the National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee or NAIDOC can be traced back to its original roots, beginning in 1932 with the formation of the Melbourne-based Australian Aborigines League, founded by prominent Yorta Yorta Activist William Cooper (Barwick, 1981).

The National Aboriginal Day Observance Committee or NADOC was originally a church-based organisation and one of several organizations active in mid-twentieth century Australia involving Aboriginal and White Australians. In its earlier settings, NADOC worked with the government to distribute publications that sought to improve non-Indigenous Australian attitudes towards Aboriginal People (Bollen & Brewster, 2018).

A timeline of significant events

1932  Melbourne-based Australian Aborigines League founded by William Cooper. The AAL is instrumental in the early formation of and recognition of National Aborigines Day (Bollen & Brewster, 2018).   

1937  Aborigines Progressive Association, an all-Aboriginal organisation founded in New South Wales by Jack Patten and William Ferguson, continues the work of the Melbourne-based Australian Aborigines League (Bollen & Brewster, 2018). 

1938  Cooper and Ferguson initiated the Aboriginal Day of Mourning, first held in Sydney on 26 January (Bollen & Brewster, 2018). 

1940  Cooper engaged the National Missionary Council of Australia to dedicate the Sunday prior to Australia Day to observe the Day of Mourning in church services. This is recognized as one of the originating impulses for National Aborigines Day (Bollen & Brewster, 2018). 

1952  Under the auspice of the National Missionary Council of Australia (NMCA), Aboriginal Sunday was promoted from the 25th of January with the hope that ‘the Church’ may influence and inspire [non-Indigenous] people everywhere to a new attitude towards Aboriginal peoples (Bollen & Brewster, 2018). 

1956  Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (AAF) founded by Faith Bandler and Pearl Gibbs in 1956 and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) founded in 1958 all emerged alongside the creation of the National Aborigines Day of Observance Committee or NADOC (Bollen & Brewster, 2018).    

1957  The National Aborigines Day of Observance Committee is established with predominantly non-Indigenous members who held similar convictions as Aboriginal people (Bollen & Brewster, 2018). 

In this year, Sir Doug Nichols (also known as Pastor Doug Nichols) held the first Aboriginal Sunday at his small chapel in Fitzroy, Melbourne. His original intention was to aim for recognition of the prior ownership by Aboriginal Australians (Bollen & Brewster, 2018).  

Aboriginal Sunday becomes National Aborigines Week (July 9 – 15) with July 13 designated as National Aborigines Day (Albert, 1979).

1967  Overwhelming majority Australians voted YES in the 1967 Referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as part of the Australian population the only referendum to achieve a 90.77 percent yes vote (National Library of Australia, 2016).

1970  NADOC becomes NAIDOC, to include Torres Strait Islanderpeoples. 

Today, NAIDOC has developed into Australia’s largest annual celebration of the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Indigenous Collections at JCU Library

The Indigenous Studies Guide is a comprehensive library guide that includes an Acknowledgement of Country, a list of Indigenous specific databases (Open Access and by JCU subscription), information on protocols and ethical research, statistics, media sources, language maps, law reports, and history.

References

Albert, S. (1979). Aboriginal and Islander views: Aboriginal Sunday. Aboriginal Child at School, 7(4), 19-23. https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/ielapa.941580917738980
Barwick, D. (1981). Cooper, William (1861-1941). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cooper-william-5773
Bollen, J., & Brewster, A. (2018). NADOC and the National Aborigines Day in Sydney, 1957-67. Aboriginal History, 42, 3-30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26570539
National Aborigines' Day Observance Committee (Australia). (1977). Chains or change: National Aborigines Day 8th July 1977 [Online image]. National Library of Australia. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-138178531
National Library of Australia. (2016). The 1967 Referendum.
https://www.nla.gov.au/research- guides/the-1967-referendum

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