Barbara Cummings (1 January 1948 – 1 September 2019) was an Australian Nangiomeri woman and member of the

Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Aboriginal Australians, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Gover ...

. She was brought up at the Retta Dixon Home in

Darwin, Northern Territory Darwin ( Larrakia: ') is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. The city has nearly 53% of the Northern Territory's population, with 139,902 at the 2021 census. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australi ...

. She became an activist,

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

er, writer and advocate for members of the Stolen Generations and contributed to the development of the Bringing Them Home report which became the basis of the Australian Government's 2007

Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples On 13 February 2008, the Parliament of Australia issued a formal apology to Indigenous Australians for forced removals of Indigenous Australians, Australian Indigenous children (often referred to as the Stolen Generations) from their familie ...

Life in the Northern Territory

Cummings was born at the Bagot Aboriginal Reserve in Darwin, which had previously been the site of the

Kahlin Compound Kahlin Compound was an institution for part- Aboriginal people in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia between 1913 and 1939. After 1924, "half-caste" children were separated from their parents and other adults and moved to an institut ...

. Her mother, Nellie, had been taken from her family in the Daly River and placed there some years before. In 1948 Cummings also was taken from her mother and placed at the Retta Dixon Home, alongside her two brothers. In 1990 Cummings published her autobiography ''Take This Child'' (1990) which was an account at her time at the Retta Dixon home and the harsh treatment, which included abuse and emotional deprivation, that the children received there. She recalled been beaten regularly during her tie there and said of some of these beatings: This book told not only her story but the stories of the people around her and included numerous interviews with others in which she sought their account of what had happened and see if she had missed anything. This book was used to inform the 1997 ''Bringing The Home Report'' which was published by the

Australian Human Rights Commission The Australian Human Rights Commission is the national human rights institution of the Commonwealth of Australia, established in 1986 as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and renamed in 2008. It is a statutory body fu ...

. In her later life Cummings also worked to support victims who were testifying at the

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and repo ...

and, from 2015, former Retta Dixon inmates makings applications for compensation through the

National Redress Scheme The National Redress Scheme (NRS) was established in 2018 by the Australian Government as a result of a recommendation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It aims to offer redress to survivors via three elemen ...

. In 2019, a few months before her passing, she was awarded with an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

from

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE, generally known as Batchelor Institute and formerly known as Batchelor College) provides training and further education, and higher education for Aboriginal Australians and Torres Str ...

, alongside

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks Rosalie Lynette Kunoth-Monks (4 January 193726 January 2022), also known as Ngarla Kunoth, was an Australian film actress, Aboriginal activist and politician. Early life Rosalie Lynette Kunoth was born on 4 January 1937 in Utopia, Northern ...

. for her contributions to the advancement of First Nations peoples. These were the first honorary doctorate awards conferred by the institute.

Legacy

Cummings legacy is significant and, following her death, a condolence motion was passed in the

Northern Territory Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory (also known as the Parliament of the Northern Territory) is the unicameral legislature of Australia’s Northern Territory. The Legislative Assembly has 25 members, each elected in single-member ...

in which the then

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

Michael Gunner Michael Patrick Francis Gunner (born 6 January 1976) is an Australian former politician who was the 11th Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2016 to 2022. He was a Labor member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, holding ...

stated: In the same motion the then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs,

Selena Uibo Selena Jane Malijarri Uibo ( ; born 25 March 1985) is an Aboriginal Australian politician. She has served as leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition in the Northern Territory since 3 September 2024, the first Aboriginal woman to ...

, called her 'a trailblazer for Aboriginal affairs in Australia and a powerful voice for our Stolen Generations'. Her death also discussed in the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Australian Senate, Senate. Its composition and powers are set out in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. ...

where

Warren Snowdon Warren Edward Snowdon (born 20 March 1950) is an Australian former politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from July 1987 to March 1996, and again from October 1998 until May 2022. Initially representing the Division o ...

called her 'a leader in every sense'.

Publications

Cummings, Barbara (1990). ''Take this child - : from Kahlin Compound to the Retta Dixon Children's Home''. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. The title of this book is taken from a quote by Retta Dixon, for whom the Retta Dixon Home was named, in which she said that God had told her to " ke these children, and train them for Me". Cummings also said that this quote reflected the attitudes of successive governments and policy-makers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummings, Barbara Indigenous Australian women People from the Northern Territory 1948 births 2019 deaths Members of the Stolen Generations