Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 – 1993)

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Turning points: 

• 1933- Worked as a domestic servant in Brisbane.
• 1941- Enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS).
• 1942- Get married "Bruce Raymond Walker". 
• The couple became involved in the Communist Party of Australia—the only political party in Australian did not support the White Australia policy at this time.
• 1946- Her son "Denis" was born. The couple had separated.
• 1964- Published her first collection "We Are Going".
• At the same time as developing her reputation as a poet, Walker became increasingly engaged in political activism in support of Aboriginal rights, social justice.
• 1969- Attended the World Council of Churches’ Consultation on Racism in London. She returned to Australia convinced of the need for Aboriginal activists to work within their own political organisations rather than white-dominated ones.
• 1971- Because of power struggles within the Brisbane Council, she left the organisation and returned to her ancestral home of North Stradbroke Island.

Achievements:

• Attended Dunwich State School. 
• Became interested in writing poetry. By the late 1950s she had joined the Brisbane arm of the Realist Writer’s Group.
• First collection in 1964 was an immediate commercial success, selling more than ten thousand copies and making Walker the best-selling Australian poet since C. J. Dennis. 
• 1966- Published her second poetry collection: "The Dawn is at Hand".
• 1970- (1970, rev. eds. 1981, 1990) - A third collection, "My People: A Kath Walker Collection".
• She became involved in the Queensland Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (QCAATSI) and came to play an important role in the national organisation, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI). The FCAATSI played a leading role in the agitation that led to voting rights (in 1965) and Australian citizenship (in 1967) for Aborigines.
• Entered a new phase of her career where she assumed the role of educator and cultural guardian and ambassador for her people.
• 1972- Published "Stradbroke Dreamtime".
• 1978- Was poet-in-residence at Bloomsburg State College, in Pennsylvania, USA, and visited a number of other US Colleges.
• 1981- Published "Father Sky and Mother Earth".
• 1988- Published "The Rainbow Serpent".
• 1982- Awarded the FAW Christopher Brennan award for her contribution to Australian literature.
• 1984- Visited China as part of an Australian cultural delegation, the trip providing the inspiration for her fourth and final poetry collection, Kath Walker in China (1988).
• 1988- Awarded honorary doctorates from Macquarie University.
• 1989- Awarded honorary doctorates from Griffith University.
• 1990 -Published "Legends of Our Land".
• 1991- Awarded honorary doctorates from Monash University.
• 1992- Awarded honorary doctorates from Queensland University of Technology.
• 1992- Published "Australia’s Unwritten History: More Legends of Our Land".

http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/noonuccal-oodgeroo

Biography for Nelson Mandela

Turning points 

• Became increasingly aware of the unjust nature of South African Society
• Resigned from the ANC and work underground.
• 1960- Decided to protest more forcibly after the Sharpeville massacre of 63 black South African’s.
• 1962- Mandela had been arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in the notorious Robben Island prison.
• 1990- Released from prison. It was an emotional moment watched by millions around the globe.

Achievements:

• Finished his degree and became a lawyer.
• 1944 - Helped found the ANC Youth League.
• 1952- Opened the first "Black Law" firm in South Africa.
• 1990- Released from prison. It was an emotional moment watched by millions around the globe.
• 1993- awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with F.W. De Klerk.
• 1994- Inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa.

Fred Hollows (1929 - 1993)

1929- Born in New Zealand.
1960- Moved to Australia for work.
1965- Became head of the Eye Department at a Sydney hospital.
1970's- Helped launch a national program to attack eye disease in Aboriginal Australians.
1980- Traveled all over the world to help set up eye health programs in developing countries. 
1989- Discovered suffering from cancer.
1993 -Died in Sydney. He left his wife and their five children.

Brian Syron 1934 - 1993

• 19 November 1934- Born in the Sydney. 
• 1952 - Became a male model and started to learn acting at the Ensemble Theatre Company in Sydney.
• 1960- Studied under the late Hayes Gordon who was a New York trained American actor/director. 
• 1961- left Australia to further pursue male modelling work in Europe with fashion houses then moved to New York where he decided to resume acting. 
• 1961- Was the first Australian accepted into the legendary Stella Adler Studio in New   York. His fellow classmates included Robert de Niro and Warren Beatty.
• 1962- Studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London
• 1967- Co-found a Theater Company in Saratoga Springs, New York, tour as a director with the Boston/Herald Travellers Shakespeare Company, tour through the Appalachian Mountains and work with the Louisville Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati In the Park as well as productions in Ohio, New Jersey and Paducah, Kentucky. 
• 1968- Toured the Southern states of America playing in Atlanta, Georgia; Roenoke, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
• 1969- Returned to Australia, Sydney. Taught a group of urban Aboriginal actors to        study Stanislavsky or acting from an Indigenous perspective.
• 1970- Joined the Old Tote Theatre in Kensington, Sydney, where he was the first Indigenous Australia to work as a director in the mainstream Australian theater industry.
• 1973- Instigated The Artists' Group Theatre to moving to The Stables Theatre in Kings Cross.
• 1973- Invited to teach drama to The Resurgent Society inmates of Parramatta Gaol. 
• 1974- Seen in Bruce McGuinness' film Time to Dream angrily and eloquently denunciating a Northern Territory arts administrator. 
• 14 October 1993- Died in Sydney.

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/heroes/brian_syron.html