Blak History Month

Blak History Month in Australia, celebrated in July, is a month-long period of celebration and recognition commemorating the history of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders and their contributions to Australian culture. While the Australian government had not officially recognized Blak History Month by 2025, the movement had gained heightened popularity since its inception in 2008. Blak History Month coincides with NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Week, a weeklong period of remembrance and recognition of Indigenous Australian culture that developed from a 1930s protest movement. The creation of Blak History Month was inspired by Black History Month celebrations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Australian Ethnic History

The Australian Aborigines are a diverse group of people representing the original inhabitants of the island continent. Genetic research suggests that the ancestors of the first Aboriginals arrived in Australia between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago. The Aboriginal population has since diverged into more than 400 distinct genetic and linguistic groups.

The Torres Strait Islanders are descendants of an indigenous people who settled the Torres Strait Islands between Queensland, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. There are fewer than 50,000 representatives of the Torres Strait Islander population remaining in Australia, and they represent a distinct ethnic lineage descended from the Melanesian people.

Government estimates in 2025 indicated that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations constituted approximately 3.8 percent of the Australian population, with about 980,000 people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent living in the nation. However, the government has noted that Aboriginal populations are often undercounted in the Census. Since the arrival of European colonists in Australia in 1788, there have been repeated conflicts between colonial and Indigenous Australians over issues such as land management and the division of resources. During most of the colonial and postcolonial periods in Australia, Aboriginal people were subject to racism and prejudice, being forcibly moved from home territories and having their rights limited by a system of racial profiling that divided the Aboriginal people into "full bloods" and "half castes."

In the 1920s, rights groups for Aboriginal peoples began forming in Australia, working for national recognition of Aboriginal peoples' culture and their contribution to the nation's history. Among the earliest organizations were the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association (AAPA), which formed in 1924, and the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), which formed in 1932.

On January 26, 1938, the day of the national holiday Australia Day, Aboriginal rights groups conducted a major protest in the streets of Sydney, Australia, later known as the "Day of Mourning." Since this time, some Aboriginal peoples groups have called Australia Day "Survival Day" or "Invasion Day," in recognition of the effect of European occupation on the indigenous inhabitants. The 1938 protest of Australia Day resulted in the establishment of a new national holiday known as Aborigines Day, which was held from 1940 to 1955 on the Sunday preceding Australia Day. The National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) was formed in 1957 to organize and facilitate the development of the national celebration and protest. In 1975, NADOC reorganized the event into a weeklong celebration and remembrance period from the first to the second Sunday in July. The committee changed its name to the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) in 1991, with the acronym "NAIDOC" becoming the official name of the celebration.

Blak History Month

The term "black" has been used derogatively to refer to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders since early in the colonial occupation of Australia. In the 1990s, a few Aboriginal artists began using the alternative spelling "blak" instead, as a way of co-opting the terminology once used to justify prejudice. The term has been traced to the work of artist Destiny Deacon, a K’ua K’ua artist and activist, who created an exhibition called "Blak Lik Mi" in 1991. Deacon continued to use the term "blak" to refer both to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and their collective creative, cultural work.

Following Destiny Deacon’s example, other Aboriginal artists began using the term "blak" in artistic and cultural exhibitions. For instance, artist Djon Mundine used the term in her "Blak Insights Exhibition and Symposium" at the Queensland Art Gallery and the "Black2Blak" exhibition at the Campbelltown Regional Arts Centre in 2007.

In 2008, artist and artistic manager Sam Cook, CEO of Kiss My Blak Artists, issued a call for the month of July to be recognized across Australia as Blak History Month. Before becoming an artistic manager, Cook was a musician who later worked as a director of the Dreaming Festival, a music festival held in Queensland celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and musicians. The proclamation, written by Cook on January 26, 2008, called for all Australians to celebrate the entire month of July as Blak History Month, comparing the proposal to the monthlong celebrations in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

After Cook’s proclamation, several artists and educators embraced the idea of Blak History Month, organizing a nonprofit organization that sells Blak History–themed merchandise to fund educational materials and local celebrations of the proposed holiday. The establishment of Blak History Month in July coincides with NAIDOC Week and therefore seeks to embrace and include NAIDOC celebrations as part of a broader, longer celebration of indigenous culture in Australia.

Volunteers and supporters of the Blak History Month movement also created a website, Blak History Month for Teachers, that provides classroom ideas, links for educational research, posters and printouts, and reading lists for educators interested in bringing indigenous history into the classroom. While the concept of Blak History Month has gained viral popularity in Australia, the holiday has not been embraced by the Australian government.

Bibliography

"About." NAIDOC. www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-week. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025.

"About Blak History Month." Blak History Month, 2023, www.blakhistorymonth.com/about. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025.

"Statistics about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People." Australian Human Rights Commission, 7 Feb. 2025, humanrights.gov.au/education/stats-facts/statistics-about-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025.

Thomas, Jason. "‘Survival Day’ Marked across Australia." SBS News, 26 Jan. 2015. www.sbs.com.au/news/article/survival-day-marked-across-australia/07uhu7yfy. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025.

"Why ‘Blak’? The History Behind the Spelling." BW Tribal Clothing, 2024, bwtribal.com/blogs/news/why-blak-the-history-behind-the-spelling. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025.