Unstoppable Stories

This year 2024 marks 200 years since Gudyarra (the Bathurst War) and the declaration of martial law on Wiradyuri Homelands, as well as 100 years since the formation of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, the countries first politically organised Aboriginal activist group. As part of “Dhuluny 1824-2024 – 200 years of Wiradyuri resistance”, the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation (WTOCWAC) invite you to reflect on stories of Wiradyuri resistance and Aboriginal political activism, with a panel featuring several important First Nations Elders, historians and activists who will consider how the long political resistance to colonisation should be commemorated, and how it continues to this day.

ABOUT THE PANEL

YANHADARRAMBAL UNCLE JADE FLYNN

Born on Ngiyampaa Ngurrumbang, Uncle Jade has Yorta Yorta and Wiradyuri heritage, a Wiradyuri Elder, Yanhadarrambal is also a director and cultural practitioner for Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation.

WIRRIBEE AUNTY LEANNA CARR-SMITH

Elder, knowledge holder and matriarch, Wirribee has been teaching people about Wiradyuri Culture for over 30 years in the Bathurst region. Aunty Leanna is a director and cultural practitioner for Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation.

LYNDA-JUNE COE

Lynda-June Coe is a proud Wiradjuri and Badulaig woman, activist, academic and PhD candidate from Erambie, Cowra NSW. She hails from a strong family and kinship system of warriors on both her maternal and paternal bloodlines. Lynda-June’s grandparents Les and Agnes were Wiradjuri trailblazers, and her father, aunties and uncles are renowned activists who have contributed to the defence of Indigenous land, people, place and futures.

Lynda-June is a passionate advocate for justice, self-determination and revitalising Indigenous governance as practice, having initiated and co-created the Wiradjuri Buyaa (Law) Council in 2018. Spanning over two decades, she has also co-organised national campaigns such as Black Lives Matter, ‘Water is Life’ Climate Action, Stop Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Stop the forced removal of Aboriginal children and condemning institutionalised systemic racism on all fronts in the settler-colonial project known as Australia.

She believes that Indigenous liberation is embodied by the concept of Indigenous sovereignty and is (re)affirmed by an operationalised and defiant Indigenous nation-led resurgence.

PROFESSOR JOHN MAYNARD
Emeritus Professor John Maynard is a Worimi Aboriginal man from the Port Stephens region of New South Wales. He has held several major positions and served on numerous prominent organizations and committees including, Deputy Chairperson of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association. He was the recipient of the Aboriginal History (Australian National University) Stanner Fellowship 1996, the New South Wales Premiers Indigenous History Fellow 2003, Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow 2004, University of Newcastle Researcher of the Year 2008 and 2012. In 2014 he was elected a member of the prestigious Australian Social Sciences Academy and in 2020 made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He gained his PhD in 2003, examining the rise of early Aboriginal political activism. He has worked with and within many Aboriginal communities, urban, rural and remote. Professor Maynard’s publications have concentrated on the intersections of Aboriginal political and social history, and the history of Australian race relations. He is the author of fifteen books, including Aboriginal Stars of the Turf, Fight for Liberty and Freedom, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe, Aborigines and the Sport of Kings, True Light and Shade and Living with the Locals.

DR STEPHEN GAPPS
Dr Stephen Gapps is a historian working to bring the Australian Frontier Wars into broader public recognition and commemoration. In 2019 his book The Sydney Wars won the Les Carlyon Award for the writing of military history. In 2021 his book Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance, the Bathurst War 1822-1824 was published by NewSouth Press. Stephen is currently collaborating on the book of the documentary series The Australian Wars and his next project on resistance warfare ‘The Rising. War in the Colony of New South Wales between 1838 and 1842’.