The Story of William Cooper:

A Legacy of Faith, Courage and Hope.

Pastor Ray Minniecon

Every NAIDOC Week we celebrate the strength, survival and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We dance, we sing, we tell stories, we honour our Elders and we celebrate cultures that have endured for more than 65,000 years.

But every year I find myself asking a simple question: Do we remember the Elder whose quiet courage helped begin this journey? His name was William Cooper.

He was not a wealthy man. He was not a politician. He never held high office. He did not have the power of governments or the influence of newspapers. He was simply an Aboriginal Elder, a Christian, and a man who believed that justice was part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For me, he was our great Mendela!

William Cooper was born around 1861 on Yorta Yorta Country along the Murray River. He experienced the full force of colonisation. He witnessed the loss of Country, the destruction of families, the denial of citizenship, and the daily humiliation imposed upon Aboriginal people. Yet he refused to allow bitterness to define him. Instead, his life was shaped by two things: his love for his people and his faith in Jesus Christ.

Late in life, when many people would have been content to rest, William Cooper began one of the greatest campaigns for justice in Australian history. From the small home where he lived on the Cummeragunja Mission, he organised petitions to the King, calling for Aboriginal representation in Parliament and equal rights for his people. Again and again, governments ignored him. But he did not give up. He understood something that every follower of Christ must learn: faith is not measured by immediate success but by faithful obedience.

In 1938, as Australia celebrated 150 years of British settlement, William Cooper and other Aboriginal leaders declared it a Day of Mourning. While the nation celebrated, they told the truth. They called Australia to repentance, justice and a new relationship with its First Peoples. That gathering became a turning point in Aboriginal political history and planted seeds that would eventually grow into the annual national observance we now know as NAIDOC.

The story of NAIDOC did not begin as a festival. It began as a prayer. It began as a protest. It began as a cry for justice. It began with faithful Aboriginal Christians who believed that God created every person in His image and that no people should be denied their dignity.

One moment from William Cooper's life reveals the depth of his character more than any other. In 1938, after the horrors of Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, when Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were attacked, at 70 years old, William Cooper led a delegation to the German Consulate in Melbourne to condemn the persecution of the Jewish people. He was not Jewish. He had no political power. His own people were suffering injustice and brutal colonialisation policies in Australia. Yet he recognised that when one people are persecuted, all people of conscience must speak. He understood the words of the prophet Micah: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) William Cooper lived those words.

As an Aboriginal Christian, I often think about the remarkable parallels between William Cooper and Jesus. Neither carried political power. Neither commanded armies. Neither sought wealth or prestige. Both stood alongside those who were marginalised. Both challenged injustice with courage rather than hatred. Both believed that truth spoken in love could change the world. And both remind us that the Kingdom of God often begins with faithful people whose names history almost forgets.

Today, when we celebrate NAIDOC, we are not simply celebrating achievements. We are honouring a legacy. We are remembering those who walked before us. We are giving thanks for Elders like William Cooper, Jack Patten, William Furgerson and Pearl Gibbs who planted trees under whose shade they knew they might never sit.

William Cooper never saw constitutional recognition. He never saw land rights. He never saw reconciliation movements across the country. He never saw Aboriginal members of Parliament or Indigenous judges or university graduates in the numbers we celebrate today. But he believed that God was already at work, preparing a future that he himself might never witness. That is what biblical hope looks like.

It is the hope of Abraham, who journeyed towards a land he had not yet seen. It is the hope of Moses, who saw the Promised Land from afar. It is the hope of the prophets, who proclaimed God's justice long before it was realised. And it is the hope of Jesus, who proclaimed the Kingdom of God even while walking the road to the cross.

As we celebrate NAIDOC this year, may we remember William Cooper not simply as a historical figure but as a Christian Elder whose life embodied the Gospel. His story reminds us that courage begins with faith. Justice begins with compassion. Healing begins with truth telling. And reconciliation and restoration begins when ordinary people allow the Spirit of the Lord to work through them.

May God encourage us to raise up another generation of women and men with the courage of William Cooper, Jack Patten, William Furgerson and Pearl Gibbs with the compassion of Christ, and the faith to believe that even the smallest act of justice can become the seed of a better future.