Hundreds of people will head to Myall Creek this weekend to commemorate the 187th anniversary of one of Australia’s darkest events, the Myall Creek massacre.
Sunday’s gathering commemorates the unprovoked massacre of at least 28 indigenous women, children and old men by a group of stockmen on Myall Creek Station in June 1838.
Ann Daly from the Friends of Myall Creek Committee says there’s many events that will be held this weekend to coincide with Sunday’s memorial including a law symposium in Armidale today and a First Nations Art Exhibition and Artisans Market at Ceramic Break Sculpture Park in Warialda on Saturday.
Ms Daly says this year is a special year as they celebrate 25th anniversary of the annual gathering at the site with special guests invited to attend.
The Myall Creek Massacre Memorial on the Bingara-Delungra Road near Bingara, was erected in June 2000 by a group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people working together in an act of truth-telling and reconciliation.
Being the 25th anniversary of the Memorial, four members of the inaugural planning group will share their motivations and challenges in bringing the Memorial into being.
Paulette Hayes, a local from Bingara first learnt about the massacre in the 1980s from fellow resident Len Payne and his hope for a
memorial to be built. Aboriginal studies at the University of New England in 1995 awakened that same passion in Paulette.
When working as a journalist for the Bingara Advocate in 1998, Paulette learnt of the Uniting Church gathering taking place at Myall Creek,
she grasped the opportunity to realise the vision.
Tingha’s Margaret Blacklock understood her extended family’s need for somewhere to grieve, believing that healing could only come through acknowledgement of the past, where descendants of perpetrators truly express sorrow and those who suffered find the capacity to forgive in their hearts.
Dharawal artist Colin Isaacs, then living locally in Inverell, was invited to create the art used along the Memorial walkway at Myall Creek. Excited by the challenge to work in a new media, Colin offered his artistic talents as a means of bringing people together. Where once there was fear and mistrust, to move forward as a nation with commitment and hope.
Warialda’s Ted Stubbins, with a strong ethical imperative to see justice done, also stepped forward in 1998. A close friend of Uncle Lyall Munro, Ted was committed to ‘truth telling’ in order the deeds of the past are acknowledged, and the reality of intergenerational
trauma understood.
Ted is now looking to the future believing, “by making Australia’s true history and consequences more widely known and understood there is a vital role to play in bringing relief to affected people and developing a more compassionate and cohesive society.”
Four people, four different life journeys, but they all found themselves at Myall Creek in 1998, with a common goal, that the truth of our
nation’s history be acknowledged before there can be healing and all Australians can move forward together as one people.
Media release: The Friends of Myall Creek Committee
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