Grace Bardsley

Grace Bardsley (1920–1972) was an Australian Aboriginal rights activist and political activist. She was a founding member of Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship (AAF) and a member of the Aborigines Advancement League (AAL). She authored a book Aborigines and the Law covering assimilation problems mainly in the Sydney area. After leaving the communist party and moving to Sydney. Bardsley continued to be active on a range of organisations committed to social justice and peace.

In 1943 Bardsley met Pearl Gibbs, an Aboriginal activist who was a member of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) campaigned for Aboriginal citizenship rights.

In late 1959 Bardsley travelled with Len and Mona Fox to the northern coast of New South Wales to visit far reserves and meet Aboriginal people from the missions and reserves. They encouraged Aborigines to sign a petition to repeal the anti-liquor clause that interfered Aboriginal people to mix freely with others.

In late 1950s, Bardsley also started to work with Helen Palmer and Audrey Johnson on editing and producing fortnightly socialist newspaper Outlook that was published until 1970. Bardsley also encouraged Clague to become skilled at activism within committees.

In July 1965 at the AAF general meeting dedicated to organisation of the first all-Aboriginal AAF conference Bardsley pointed at an error of the organisers who first planned to include both Aboriginal and European Australian speakers to the program of the conference. She explained that ‘the whole point of this conference is that Aborigines should not hear whites tell them what to do. The Aborigines should be there sponsoring, chairing and speaking. They should have the whole show.’ Bardsley was selected by aboriginal members to coordinate the office work of the Aboriginal sponsoring committee and sent letters to Aboriginal communities throughout the state.

Grace Bardsley died in 1972. The Grace Bardsley Aboriginal Fund, established by the AAF in her name, helped to fund publications and other Aboriginal rights supporting projects between 1973 and 1978.