From Ngukurr to Newcastle: Exploring the activism, impacts and legacy of Dexter Daniels

Friday, 21 January 2022

There are extraordinary stories that never make the light of day until someone digs through an archive, unearths newspaper cuttings and asks the question: Why was this man, from a remote Arnhem Land Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, making headlines in Newcastle, New South Wales, in the late 60s and early 70s?

A woman sitting at a table looking at a newspaper cutting
At the Copley Archive: Dr Daphne Daniels (L) & Associate Professor Kate Senior (R)

It was this surprising discovery, Associate Professors Kate Senior and Tamara Young made in early 2020 at the University of Newcastle’s Copley Archive, that sparked an idea to explore the legacy of this largely forgotten activist.

Together with Dr Ray Kelly, Deputy Head of School at Wollotuka Institute and Professor Victoria Haskins, Co-Director at Purai Global Indigenous History Centre, the team secured a $14,000 under the College of Human and Social Futures Pilot Research: Projects, Pivots, Partnerships scheme to add to the collection of Indigenous histories through archival history.

From Ngukurr to Newcastle. Exploring the activism, impacts and legacy of Dexter Daniels, will tell the story of a man who was not only instrumental in organising the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off, but whose participation in speaking tours and rallies for land rights across Australia and as far away as Bulgaria, was financially supported by the Newcastle Trades Unions.

The unions raised money through the Aboriginal Advancement Committee to support strike action in the Northern Territory.

They also encouraged their members to recognise and engage with the struggle for Indigenous equal pay and land rights.

Although Professor Senior had never met Mr Daniels, she is close to the Daniel’s family through her friend and research associate, Daphne Daniels, Mr Daniel’s niece, whom she has known for 25 years through her work with the Ngukurr community.

“All the Daniels family are feisty and passionate about improving the circumstances for people in remote communities and most of them have been involved in politics and activism,” Professor Senior said.

“Daphne is the first woman in her family to take on such a role.”

Dr Daniels, her father (now deceased) and her children worked with Professor Senior on a wide range of projects and activities in the community.

“We have looked at governance and leadership and young people's involvement in these activities, the lives and decision-making of young women, how the community has dealt issues such as petrol sniffing,” she said.

Unlike Vincent Lingiari, immortalised by the Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly song, From Little Things Big Things Grow, Mr Daniels is a largely forgotten activist perhaps, the researchers suggest, because of his association with the Australian Communist Party, generally reviled due to the anti-communist sentiments generated by the Cold War era.

An Indigenous Trades Unionist and Communist Party member, Mr Daniels was a key organiser of the 1970 Ngukurr strike and a movement that eventually led to the Northern Territory Indigenous Land Rights Act, in 1976.

The research team anticipate that the project will build local linkages with the Newcastle community as well as consolidating information about Mr Daniels in relation to his activities in NSW.

“Our serendipitous finding in the archives presents opportunities for development of a new research approach ... [and provide] opportunities to work in collaboration with historians and … to build on anthropological work established in collaboration with the Ngukurr community,” the team write.

The project will also explore the reasons why his story has been largely forgotten, both in his own community and nationally.

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