A local ceremony will be held to pay respect to former Tumbulgum and Murwillumbah resident Faith Bandler, a South Sea Islander regarded as one of the world’s most influential women.
A State funeral was held in Sydney to commemorate the life of the leading Aboriginal rights campaigner, who was 96 years old when she passed away on Friday February 13.
Ms Bandler is best known as a leading figure in a push for the 1967 referendum, when Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census and allow the Commonwealth to create laws for them.
She campaigned for the rights of South Sea Islanders, worked for Aboriginal education and housing, and served as a founding member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby.
Her advocacy steered a course for the granting of citizenship for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and her brave involvement in a Freedom Ride through segregated towns in 1965 created positive momentum for many issues confronting Aboriginal Australians.
The Mayor of Tweed, Councillor Gary Bagnall, said “The close relationship built over generations between the South Sea Island community in Tweed Shire and the local Aboriginal people blossomed in the work of Faith.
“This relationship has had a profound influence in human rights all over Australia. Faith was an inspirational activist and the work she started continues to this day.
“It is a sad time for her family and friends and our thoughts are with them.”
The National Trust listed Ms Bandler as a national living treasure in 1997 and she was named in lists of the 100 most influential Australians in the 20th Century and the world’s 50 most influential women.
She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1984, for her service to Aboriginal welfare, a Human Rights Medal by the National Trust of Australia and was appointed as a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2009.
She was the daughter of Wacvie Mussingkon, a South Sea Islander who was abducted and sold as a slave to work on sugar plantations, and Ida Venno, a woman of Indian-Scottish descent.
Her father, who became Peter Mussing, was a lay preacher who worked on a banana plantation near Murwillumbah.
He died when Faith was only five years old but had taught his four sons and four daughters to be independent.
The family moved to Murwillumbah and Faith passed an examination for entrance to Murwillumbah High School.
It is believed she might have been the only black child to pass the test.
A riverside park is named in her honour, the Faith Bandler-Mussing Park, at Tumbulgum.
The Tweed’s South Sea Islander community is also organising a ceremony for Faith Bandler-Mussing at the South Sea Islander Memorial.
