Ruby Hammond

Ruby Florence Hammond (1936 - 16 April 1993) was an Australian Indigenous rights campaigner and the first Indigenous South Australian to seek election to the Federal Parliament.

Hammond was born in 1936 in Blackford, an independent Aboriginal community on the south-east coast of South Australia, and was a member of the Tanganekald group of the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong. Ruby obtained school certificate in 1952 but the tough conditions at work in a shop made her touch racism against her.

At the age of 32 she became a member of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia and was active throughout the 1970s and 1980s in the pursuit of equal rights for Aboriginal people, including professional roles at the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, ). The commission's report outlined Aboriginal customary laws were not generally recognised by general Australian law, yet were a significant influence on Aboriginal people. The report recommended that Aboriginal people should have the final say in the recognition of customary law. In 1980, Hammond advocated for a treaty which recognised Aboriginal sovereignty. Speaking as representative for the Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group, Hammond argued "we are the national minority; it is a treaty between two nations. The government must agree and recognise that we were here first".

In 1988, she ran in the by-election for the Federal seat of Port Adelaide, becoming the first Indigenous South Australian to do so. In January 1993 Hammond was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal, which was presented to her by Her Excellency the Governor of South Australia, Dame Roma Mitchell. The artwork was designed by "Munnari" John Hammond, her son. Her name is also inscribed on the Port Adelaide Workers Memorial.