Winnie Branson

Winnie Branson (born Winnifred Lillian Warrior; 1927–1972) was an Aboriginal Australian rights activist. She is known as the first South Australian state secretary of FCAATSI (1967–1971), and in 1967 was part of a delegation to Canberra to meet with Prime Minister Harold Holt and MPs to lobby for the "yes" vote in the 1967 referendum. She was the sister of health worker Josie Agius and activist Vince Copley.

Early life Winnifred Lillian Warrior was born in 1927 on Point Pearce Reserve (Bookayana) on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. She was eldest child of Kathleen (née Edwards) and Frederick Warrior, the surname an anglicised form of his father's name, Barney Waria Barney Waria was one of a few last initiated Ngadjuri men, and his stories were documented by anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt.

Branson was primarily Ngadjuri, but also had Kaurna, Narungga, and Ngarrindjeri ancestry. Through her grandmother Maisie May Edwards (née Adams), Branson was descended from Kudnarto, a Kaurna woman who was the first Aboriginal woman to legally marry a white South Australian colonist on 27 January 1848, when she married Thomas Adams.

She grew up in Bookayana and Wallaroo, working in the Point Pearce Mission dairy and helping with cleaning jobs there. Like most young Aboriginal women in that era, she was sent to work as a domestic servant at the decree of the Aborigines Protection Board from about age 14. After her father died, her mother remarried and moved to Leigh Creek, and later to Mparntwe / Alice Springs.

In the 1960s, she was a founding member of the Aborigines' Progress Association. From the early 1960s, she attended the national FCAATSI conference in Canberra as a member of the Adelaide Delegation, where delegates identified the shared issues facing all Aboriginal Australians, as well as advocating citizenship reform and Indigenous land rights.

Later she worked with her cousin Gladys Elphick to form the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia and both women were involved in the founding of the Aboriginal Community Centre (Nunkuwarrin Yunti) Branson was also involved in establishment of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. ), which acknowledged 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who had achieved change over the previous 100 years.

Personal life Branson joined her mother and younger siblings in Mparntwe / Alice Springs with her baby son Freddie. They had six children: Fred, Patricia, Roslyn, Betty, David, and Vincent.

The family moved to Pine Point, on the Yorke Peninsula for a while, ultimately settling in the Adelaide suburb of Taperoo, where Winnie became involved in the growing Aboriginal activism of the era advocating for better support and living conditions for Aboriginal people who had left their regional homes to live in Adelaide.

Death and legacy Branson died in 1972.

An award named in her honour, the Winnie Branson Cup, is presented to the winning football team at the annual SA Aboriginal Football and Netball Carnival each year. Another award at the Carnival honours her sister - the Josie Aguis Trophy.

A meeting room in the SA Department for Infrastructure and Transport building is named "Winnie Branson".