16 Facts About Bobbi Sykes

Roberta "Bobbi" Sykes was an Australian poet and author.

Bobbi Sykes was a lifelong campaigner for Indigenous land rights, as well as human rights and women's rights.

Bobbi Sykes says in her autobiography that his identity is unknown, and her mother told her a number of different accounts about him; variously that he was Fijian, Papuan, African American, and Native American.

Bobbi Sykes was sometimes criticised for not correcting the record when others assumed she was Aboriginal.

Bobbi Sykes was expelled from St Patricks College at age 14 and, after a succession of jobs, including a nurse's assistant at the Townsville General Hospital from 1959 to 1960, she moved to Brisbane and then to Sydney in the early to mid-1960s, where she worked as a striptease dancer at the notorious Pink Pussycat Club in Kings Cross under the stage name of "Opal Stone".

Bobbi Sykes became a freelance journalist and got involved in several national Indigenous activist organisations.

Bobbi Sykes was one of the many protestors arrested at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in July 1972.

Bobbi Sykes was involved in the creation and early development of the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service, the National Black Theatre in Redfern, and in the setting up of Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre in Glebe, which later became NAISDA, which nurtured Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Bobbi Sykes won the Patricia Weickert Black Writers Award in 1981.

Bobbi Sykes received a PhD in education from Harvard University in 1983 or 1984, after Black Women's Action raised funds to cover her expenses to study there in 1979.

Bobbi Sykes was the first black Australian to graduate from a United States university.

Bobbi Sykes returned to Australia, where she took over running the BWA.

Bobbi Sykes was appointed to the Nation Review, as Australia's first Indigenous columnist.

In 2003 Bobbi Sykes became ill and participated less in BWAEF activities, but the foundation continued its work until around 2006, when there was an hiatus for a few years.

In late 2008, Bobbi Sykes asked Danny Gilbert to revive the foundation, and Gilbert suggested a change of name to the Roberta Bobbi Sykes Indigenous Education Foundation.

RSIEF has continues Bobbi Sykes' work, supporting a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to undertaking postgraduate study overseas.