Gary Foley Collection enters public view, reshaping how Aboriginal activism history is told

A major archive of Aboriginal political history collected over decades by activist and academic Professor Gary Foley is gaining renewed public attention, with supporters describing it as a rare resource that preserves movement history through an Aboriginal lens.

ABC News reported the Gary Foley Collection, housed at Victoria University’s Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit, has grown into what is now known as the Aboriginal History Archive – a collection spanning activism from the 1920s through to the modern era and built from material Foley saved across more than 45 years. The story described the collection as including items such as letters, manifestos, posters, photographs, films and memorabilia, assembled through a lifetime of community organising and documentation.

Aboriginal lecturer and researcher Kim Kruger said the collection faced resistance before it found a permanent home. “For many years, lots of places weren’t interested” she said, reflecting on the long search to properly house and care for the archive.

Victoria University’s library description of the Foley Collection says it is “a selection of digital works from a major historic archive collected over the past 45 years” and forms part of a wider print, audiovisual and digital collection. The university notes that an open-access project began in 2014 to make portions of the archive publicly available through its research repository.

According to the Aboriginal History Archive page on Victoria University’s website, the collection includes “over 80,000 items” across formats such as newsletters, minutes, posters, flyers, correspondence, photographs, audio tapes and moving images. The university says the archive operates “under Aboriginal control” and is guided by principles of Aboriginal leadership, with governance designed to ensure culturally safe access and management.

The archive sits within a wider national conversation about who controls historical records and how Aboriginal political and cultural movements are represented. Supporters argue the value of the collection is not simply in its size but in the fact it documents strategies, debates and everyday organising that built Aboriginal-led health, legal, media and community services, and that it can help younger generations understand how self-determination was fought for, not granted.

As more of the collection is digitised and made accessible, the archive is expected to support education, research and community storytelling and to challenge public narratives that omit Aboriginal agency and leadership from Australia’s political history.