Anna Haebich – November 10 2019

International Day for Tolerance – November 16

Anna is an award-winning author and historian, recognised for her research and work with Aboriginal communities, in particular the Noongar people to whom she is related by marriage. She holds a BA (Hons) from the University of Western Australia, a BA in Fine Arts from Curtin University, and a PhD from Murdoch University. Anna has been a Professor specialising in interdisciplinary research at Griffith University and is currently a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and has been a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Research Advisory Committee. Her career brings together university teaching and research, centre directorship, museum curatorship, visual arts practice, creative writing and work with Indigenous communities. Her publications include Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800–2000, the first and most comprehensive national history of Australia’s Stolen Generations; the definitive history For Their Own Good: Aborigines and Government in the South West of Western Australia 1900–1940; and Spinning the Dream: Assimilation in Australia. Her research interests include histories of Indigenous peoples, migration, the body, the environment, the visual and performing arts, and representations of the past. Together with Doreen Mellor she edited Many Voices Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation (book with audio recordings) for the National Library of Australia. In 2003 Anna was awarded a Centenary of Federation Medal for Services to Australian Society and Literature.

A Boy’s Short Life: The story of Warren Braedon/Louis Johnson – Co-written with Steve Mickler
University of Western Australia, 2014; ISBN 9781742585079
He never knew his name, he never knew his mother, he never knew his family, he never knew his people, he never knew his country. Born Alice Springs, 4th January, 1973, murdered Perth, 4th January, 1992 … because he was black. Louis St John Johnson, born Warren Braedon into a Luritja and Arrernte family, was taken from his mother in Alice Springs at just three months old. Despite growing up with the love and care of his adoptive family, Louis was increasingly targeted by school bullies and police for his Aboriginality, and his attempts to find his natural family in Alice Springs were thwarted by bureaucracy. Walking home on his nineteenth birthday, Louis was brutally murdered by a group of white youths ‘because he was black’. This story captures the dark heart of racism in modern Australia, and the history, government policies and community attitudes that marked this boy out for a short life.

Murdering Stepmothers: The Execution of Martha Rendell
University of Western Australia, 2010; ISBN 9781921401459
Murdering Stepmothers is based on the true story of Martha Rendell, the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia. It brings to life the people of Perth and the entangled mesh of self-righteous bigotry, slander and revenge they invoke to propel the trial of Martha Rendell to its inevitable end. Sensational rumours of the murder of three small children by their stepmother ignite the passions of Perth citizens in 1909. Shocked by horrific descriptions of how she poisoned the children, they demand her execution as one voice. But did she do it? Or was she a victim of the prejudices of her persecutors?