NAIDOC

About National NAIDOC Week

National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. You can support and get to know your local Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander communities through activities and events held across the country. (https://www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-week)

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The history of NAIDOC celebrations originates with the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC), founded in 1957 to promote the first Sunday in July as a day for focusing Australians’ attention on the Aboriginal communities in their midst. The National Missionary Council of Australia (NMCA) had, since 1940, encouraged churches to observe the Sunday before the Australia Day weekend as Aboriginal Sunday. The NMCA had taken up a suggestion by William Cooper, who, following his successful promotion of a ‘day of mourning’ on Australia Day 1938, had written to the NMCA seeking help in establishing a permanent Aborigines Day. In 1955 the NMCA changed the date to the first Sunday in July and secured the support of federal and state governments, as a result of which the original NADOC was formed. The establishment of the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs boosted the activities of the committee, which in 1974 became an all-Aboriginal body.

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In 1975 NADOC extended Aboriginal Day into National Aborigines Week, during which the Aboriginal people’s cultural heritage and contribution to Australian society are celebrated. Various activities are arranged for each day of the week, wherever it is celebrated. In more recent years National Aborigines Weeks have followed particular themes. For instance, the 1987 theme was ‘White Australia has a black history’, a timely reminder to non-Aboriginal Australians as they entered the year of the bicentenary of European settlement. Since 1976 NADOC has run as a federal body; in 1989 the word ‘Islander’ was added to the title which became the National Aboriginal and Islander Observance Committee, hence NAIDOC.

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