THE RiCH HiSTORY OF nAiDOC WEEK

To celebrate NAIDOC Week, we commissioned Lawson Dodd, a Kaurna / Narungga / Ngarrindjeri artist through Ochre Dawn for the design of our magazine cover.

Our Office is based on Kaurna Country, and we respect the spiritual relationship that the Kaurna peoples have with the land.

NAIDOC Week (National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee) occurs annually in July, and celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In 2023 NAIDOC Week was celebrated July 2ndj uly 9 th , with the theme being For Our Elders. This theme pays respect to Elders as cultural knowledge holders, community figures, teachers and survivors.

The celebration of NAIDOC Week can be traced back to the 1920s, with Aboriginal rights groups fighting for acknowledgement of their culture and their history.

The first Day of Mourning was held on January 26 th, 1938, protesting their treatment under the Commonwealth and asking for a new policy to give Aboriginal people full citizen status and equality within the community.

It took a decade for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be granted citizenship under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948.

In 1967, a public vote ruled in favour to change the Constitution to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as part of the population.

In 1955, the Day of Mourning moved to the first Sunday in j uly, as it was decided that the event should be not only a protest day, but also a celebration of Aboriginal culture.

Around this time, the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) was formed; the National NAIDOC Committee of today respectfully acknowledges the now defunct and inaccurate term ‘Aborigines’, whilst retaining the term in the title, due to historic use by Elders in establishing this week of commemoration.

In 1972, the Department for Aboriginal Affairs was formed, as a direct outcome of the 1967 referendum. In 1974, it was decided that the National Aborigines Day celebrations should extend to a week covering the first and second Sundays in July each year.

This is now known as National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week.

NAIDOC Week is not the only time you can celebrate Aboriginal culture and achievements, but it’s a week to reflect, come together as a nation and engage with cultures that are tens of thousands of years old.