Behind the Mulga Curtain and beyond the Grave: Mary Montgomerie Bennett's Leadership in Aboriginal Affairs, 1930-1961
Sue Taffe
Abstract
Historians who specialise in twentieth-century campaigns to achieve justice for Aboriginal Australians recognise the contribution of Mary Bennett to this field of human endeavour. She is, however, almost completely unknown to those outside this specific field. This chapter takes as its starting point a female model of leadership that is about empowering others in the task of reshaping society. While Bennett’s early advocacy in the 1930s has been recognised, it is her influence on her Aboriginal students and on a later generation of activists that provides the strongest evidence that she displayed a leadership which showed imagination, courage and a faith in a more inclusive future for the Aboriginal people whom she loved and respected.
Keywords
Mary Bennett, Indigenous rights campaigns, leadership, human rights, Aboriginal justice
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