Mabo family collection
Collection
The collection includes shirts worn by Eddie Koiki Mabo and his extended family. These include shirts designed by Dr. Bonita Mabo AO often containing personal messages of support for her husband and that celebrate his culture and the successful Mabo High Court case; a shirt supporting the South Australian Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Bill; a shirt worn by Gail Mabo when Prime Minister Tony Abbott AC toured Mer (Murray Island), shirts celebrating National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Week and Mabo Day; National Native Title conference shirts; and a variety of other shirts including a 'Smugglers of Light' Foundation shirt, of which Gail Mabo is the patron and ambassador. Other items include silk screens used by Dr. Bonito Mabo AO to screen print her designs. The collection also includes a variety of publications including corflute posters for Mabo Day 2017; an invitation, ticket and information pack presented to Bonita Mabo for the inaugural Eddie Mabo Memorial Lecture and Dinner 2002 and of great significance the Mabo family's annotated copy of Margaret Lawrie's publication 'Myths and legends of the Torres Strait'.
Edward 'Koiki' Mabo (1936-1992) was a Torres Strait Islander community leader known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and for his role in a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia on 3 June 1992 (five months after Mabo's death) which overturned the legal doctrine of terra nullius which characterised Australian law in regard to land and title. Edward Koiki Mabo married Bonita Neehow (ca. 1943-2018), an Australian South Sea Islander, in 1959. The couple had seven children and adopted three more. Their daughter Gail, is an artist and dancer. Koiki Mabo worked on pearling boats, as a cane cutter and as a railway fettler before working as a gardener at James Cook University in Townsville. In 1973 he and Bonita established the Black Community School in Townsville where Indigenous children could learn about their own culture. In 1981 Mabo gave a speech at a land rights conference at James Cook University which led to the successful Mabo test case.
In copyright.