People Australia

Ruby Hammond, Messenger Newspapers, 1988

Port Adelaide Historical Society, S2021.1231

Ruby Florence Hammond, nee Ahang (1936-1993) Aboriginal activist, social worker and public servant.

Birth: 10 March 1936 at Kingston, South Australia, daughter of Arthur Ahang (1909-1983), a shearer of Tanganekald and Chinese heritage, born at Wellington east, SA, and Ethel Hilda, née Ellis, late Wachmer (1911-1964), a domestic worker of Western Arrente heritage. Marriages: (1) 25 March 1951 at the Methodist Church, Port Adelaide, to Bill (Les) Hammond. The marriage soon ended, (2) about 1955 to her brother-in-law Frank Angus Hammond, a motor mechanic. She had one daughter and two sons. Death: 16 April 1993 in Le Fevre Community Hospital, Semaphore, Adelaide, SA; usual address Curlew Court, Semaphore Park. 

• Member of the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong. Began her education with correspondence lessons. Educated at Blackford (one room school), Kingston Higher Primary School, and South Australian Institute of Technology. Grew up in poverty near Kingston.
• When she left school, in 1944 she obtained a certificate from the Aborigines Protection Board exempting her from the provisions of the Aborigines Act.
• First Aboriginal person to work in a shop in Kingston. First Aborigine in SA to gain the Leaving Certificate.
• Pregnant at 16, she came to Adelaide to the Kate Cocks Home to have her baby which was reared by her parents.
• Ruby moved to Adelaide when she was 18 to work as a telephonist in the Postmaster General’s department until her marriage when she had to resign. She sang in the Employees Playtime, a radio talent quest where she won first place. Lived at Willard Hall run by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
• In 1966 she became active in the Council for Aboriginal Women in SA, which had been set up so that the Aboriginal people could help themselves, the first of its kind in Australia.
• In the 1967 Referendum to amend the Constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census she took on a leadership role of sending women into the community with Vote Yes stickers, she was at airports when Members of Parliament were travelling, she went to public and committee meetings all over the city.
• She was a volunteer social worker, and worked at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1969 as an Aboriginal Field Officer and social worker. She established the Boomerang Basketball team.
• In 1972 there was an Aboriginal Tent Embassy at Brougham Place, North Adelaide; it stood for 3 months and she visited every day. In 1972 she attended a meeting in Canberra of 62 people from Aboriginal Advisory Councils, she was the only one from Adelaide.
• One of the most significant early cases run by the Aboriginal Legal Service was against the New Exchange Hotel at Port Adelaide where service had been refused to an Aboriginal person — she spoke to the publican on behalf of the Legal Service. She joined the Socialist Party in 1972.
• In 1972 a group of nine Aboriginal people from all states were invited to visit China by the Australia-China Friendship Society, but were required to have special permission to leave Australia. Qantas refused to accept their booking but Air New Zealand took them to Hong Kong; they were the first Aboriginal delegation to step foot on foreign soil.
• Hammomd worked with a number of Aboriginal organisations including the Council of Aboriginal Women and Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement where she was the executive officer. She lost her job by campaigning too actively for Pitjantjatjara land rights.
• In 1974 she was the only Aboriginal woman on the Prime Minister’s advisory committee for International Women’s Year. She was involved in making the film “Sister, If You Only Knew”, a film about Aboriginal women’s statement.
• In 1988 she was the first Aboriginal person to stand for Parliament in SA, contesting the federal seat of Port Adelaide.
• She was a member of numerous committees including the Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group (1973), Council of Aboriginal Women ((1968-74), Aboriginal Land Rights Movement (founding member 1972), Aboriginal Housing Board (founding member, 1971-74) World Peace Council (1978-85), and Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement.
• Cause of death: carcinoma of stomach (1 year). 

Sources
Margaret Forte, Flight of an Eagle, the Dreaming of Ruby Hammond.