Barbara Cummings

[1][2][3] She became an activist, social worker, writer and advocate for members of the Stolen Generations and contributed to the development of the Bringing Them Home report which became the basis of the Australian Government's 2007 Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.

[5] In 1990 Cummings published her autobiography Take This Child (1990)[7] which was an account at her time at the Retta Dixon home and the harsh treatment, which included abuse and emotional deprivation, that the children received there.

[9] In her later life Cummings also worked to support victims who were testifying at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and, from 2015, former Retta Dixon inmates makings applications for compensation through the National Redress Scheme.

[2][8] In 2019, a few months before her passing, she was awarded with an honorary doctorate from Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, alongside Rosalie Kunoth-Monks.

[10][11] Cummings legacy is significant and, following her death, a condolence motion was passed in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in which the then Chief Minister Michael Gunner stated:[5] There are those who still dismiss the Stolen Generation.