People Australia

ClancyvMcKenna [or Warntupungarna] (1909-1979) gaoled Aboriginal activist 

Birth: about 24 September 1909, probably at Meentheena station, Western Australia, son of Maurice McKenna, an Irish-born station manager, and Nyamalangu (Nellie); she and her husband Frank Djungunbuna belonged to the Nyamal people and worked on the property. Marriage: 18 August 1950 at the district registrar’s office, Port Hedland, to Topsy Dougall (1923-1975) a domestic servant. Death: 20 August 1979 at Wine Tree Camp, Marble Bar, WA. 

• Warntupungarna’s father evicted the family at gunpoint when Clancy was about 3 years old. He was raised by his mother on Coongan, Bungalow and other stations in the Marble Bar area. He later lived in Port Hedland, WA.
• McKenna represented Aboriginal people at a meeting, which lasted six weeks, of two hundred representatives from 23 language groups at Skull Springs in 1942 which proposed rights for Indigenous people to organise and to appoint their own representatives for dealings with the Native Affairs bureaucracy and the WA State Labor government.
• Active in pastoral strike of Aboriginal people in the Pilbara region in 1946 around the issue of improvement in wages and conditions. Organised several self-supporting enterprises during the strike by travelling the district and setting up camps as collection points for pearl shell, kangaroo skins and goat skins.
• Taken into custody in 1946 for assisting in organising a strike around Port Hedland in April 1946 and charged in May for enticement to strike. Served seven weeks of a three-month gaol sentence for participation in strike.
• Released in June due to public campaign and unity amongst the strikers. Continued organising activities in support of the strike.
• Cause of death: acute bacterial endocarditis. 

Sources
Michael Hess, The Pilbara Aboriginal Pastoral Workers Uprising of 1946, Paper presented in Australian-Canadian Labour History Conference, Sydney, December 1988, pp 6-12.