Biography

Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal
Custodian of the land Minjerribah

On 3 November 1920, Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska was born on North Stradbroke, an island in Moreton Bay about 30 kilometres east of Brisbane, and the home of the Noonuccal tribe.

There were seven children in the Ruska family, and all spent some time at the Dunwich Primary School. At the age of 13, and as an Aboriginal with no future in the State Education System, Kath went into domestic service in Brisbane. She was rescued from that fate by the Second World War when she served in the Australian Women's Army Service.

Kath married Bruce Walker, a waterside worker in Brisbane, and had two sons, Denis and Vivian. She joined the Communist Party because it was the only political organisation that eschewed the White Australia Policy, but left the Party because it wanted to write her speeches!

The sixties — the years of freedom rides, the struggle for the right to vote and the Gurindji strike at Wave Hill — saw Kath become a prominent and persuasive figure as she wrote and spoke for Aboriginal Rights, perhaps following the path of her father who had been active in the struggle for award wages for Aboriginal peoples as early as 1935.

In 1964 her first volume of verse and the first by an Australian Aborigine, We Are Going, was published (with the encouragement of Judith Wright and the aid of a Commonwealth Literary Fund) by The Jacaranda Press. Her second volume, The Dawn Is at Hand, followed in 1966. The honest and outspoken poems gained immediate acceptance and they were to be the forerunners of a considerable output which includes short stories, speeches, paintings, drama and film.

The Civil Rights struggle of the 60s and 70s saw Kath active on many local, State and, later, National Committees. She was Queensland State Secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, Secretary of the Queensland State Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and a member of the Queensland Aboriginal Advancement League.

During this time of heightened activity associated with pressure to amend Section 51 and repeal Section 127 of the Australian Constitution, Kath Walker was part of the delegation which presented the case for reform to Prime Minister Menzies. This lobbying led to one of the most important Constitutional reforms since Federation when, on 27 May 1967, 90 % of the Australian Electorate supported the proposed amendments.

Later she served on the Aboriginal Arts Board, the Aboriginal Housing Committee and was chairperson of the National Tribal Council and the Stradbroke Land Council. From 1972 she was Managing Director of the Noonuccal-Nughie Education Cultural Centre, as well as a remedial teacher at Dunwich School. She lectured at universities and colleges throughout Australia on subjects ranging from uranium mining to conservation and the environment to Aboriginal culture.

In 1969 Kath Walker was the Australian delegate to the World Council of Churches Consultation on Racism in London, bringing the plight of her people to overseas attention for the first time.