Uncle Lionel Fogarty, trailblazing Aboriginal warrior and poet, died in February, aged 68. He worked tirelessly throughout his life on political campaigns for Aboriginal peoples’ rights, while earnestly and consistently crafting provocative, complex poetry.
Creative Australia described Lionel as one of Australia’s most respected, long-standing and profoundly honest Indigenous poets and political activists.
Lionel was a proud Mununjali man of the Yugambeh nation. He was born and raised in Cherbourg, Queensland, and active in many political struggles including the movement for land rights, setting up Aboriginal health and legal services and stopping Black deaths in custody.
“His poetry was formed from his participation at protest rallies and community meetings across the country and inspired by the letters that parents in the community of Cherbourg would write to the Aboriginal Protection Board and to sons and daughters in prison,” said Creative Australia.
Lionel’s first poetry collective was published in 1980, with Kargun and spanned 14 collections and five decades. His last book, Harvest Lingo, published in 2023 won him the Judith Wright Calanthe Award at the Queensland Literary Awards, as well as being shortlisted for other literary awards.
He travelled the world, raising awareness and seeking justice, speaking at festivals and conferences across Australia and Europe in the 1990s and 2000s.
I remember Lionel from 1975, when he became one of the celebrated “Brisbane Three” fighters for Aboriginal justice, along with Denis Walker and John Garcia, under Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s infamous National Party regime in Queensland.
The Brisbane Three were charged by the Queensland Police Special Branch on trumped-up evidence of conspiracy.
A national campaign for their defence eventually led to the three activists being acquitted.
I vividly recall Lionel’s strong defence of his brother Daniel Yock, who was murdered by police in custody in Magain-djin/Brisbane in 1993.
Yock, a founder of the Wakka Wakka Dance Company, was racially profiled by the police, assessed as being disorderly and was alleged to have pulled a stake from the ground, threatening police.
He was taken into custody and brutalised. Unconscious, Yock was dragged into the police wagon, face down. He died within hours.
This tragedy and its aftermath for Aboriginal communities in Queensland — particularly Cherbourg —led to mass protests demanding the police be brought to justice.
Lionel spent the rest of his life speaking out against Aboriginal deaths in custody, including with his poetry. Two poems of grief and anger appear in his best-known collection New and Selected Poems: Munaldjali, Mutuerjaraera, published in 1995.
Reflecting on Lionel’s life, Yugambeh Nation told the National Indigenous Times that he was “a true legend” and “broke every rule of the coloniser’s language to make sure our Murri truth was heard loud and clear. We walk taller today because Uncle Lionel paved the way.”
Lionel’s son Moojidi has set up a GoFundMe page to give him a “beautiful send off”. Many families are expected to travel to Cherbourg for the memorial and burial on March 6.
Vale warrior poet Lionel Fogarty.