Fighter for indigenous rights compelled and polarised

THE rollercoaster of Roberta Sykes's extraordinary life has ended in a Sydney nursing home.

THE rollercoaster of Roberta Sykes's extraordinary life has ended in a Sydney nursing home.

OBITUARY

Roberta Sykes,

Aboriginal rights activist, academc, writer

Born Townsville, 1943

Died Sydney, Sunday, November 14, aged 67.

The flamboyant Aboriginal rights activist, academic and writer, whose searing autobiography laid bare racism in Australia and provoked debate over what it meant to be an Aborigine, died on Sunday. She was 67.

Dr Sykes spent much of her adult years in the glare of publicity. From being arrested in 1972 at the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra to being the first black Australian to graduate from a US university -- namely, the ivied halls of Harvard -- and the unresolved controversy over her entitlement to call herself Aborigine, she both polarised and compelled.

As her health deteriorated, she withdrew from public life. Debilitated by the effects of a stroke, she spent her last years in nursing care while her work of developing education opportunities for indigenous people overseas continued through the foundation that bore her name.

She was born in 1943 in Townsville. For years, she maintained she did not know the identity of her father, even though her white mother had been on the public record as naming him as an African American soldier she met during World War II but who had no ongoing contact with the family.

Dr Sykes said she was forced to leave school at 14 and wrote powerfully of the discrimination she experienced, both on racial grounds and as the daughter of a single mother. But her account of an impoverished childhood in north Queensland was later disputed by some in the indigenous community, who also questioned her right to cloak herself in the Aboriginal identity.

Typically, Dr Sykes gave as good as she got from the critics. If she did embellish aspects of her life, there was no need. It was rich and colourful by any measure. At 17, the then Bobbi Sykes was attacked and raped by four white men in Townsville, prompting a famous court case.

In the late 1960s she moved to Sydney and worked as a dancer in a strip club. Moving south also brought her political awakening; Dr Sykes joined activists such as Charles Perkins in loudly championing indigenous rights.

After her arrest in the tent embassy protests in 1972, the policeman responsible told a court: "She's a nice looking girl until she opens her mouth."

Dr Sykes resumed her truncated education, earned her landmark PhD from Harvard in 1983 and maintained an association with that bastion of US wealth and influence for the rest of her life. She also developed as a fine writer, with her first book -- an anthology of poetry -- published in 1979.

The opening instalment of her three-volume autobiography, Snake Cradle, appeared 20 years later to critical acclaim and controversy over her right to identify herself as Aborigine.

While not even her sternest critics doubted her passion and commitment, she was a divisive figure within the indigenous movement. Among her critics was fellow academic and long-standing indigenous health advocate Gracelyn Smallwood.

Associate Professor Smallwood said yesterday that although she had had her differences with Dr Sykes, she was grateful to her for blazing the trail to Harvard for black Australians.

"Twenty years ago, I was invited to Harvard University to lecture on human rights and Aboriginal health, and that came about because Bobbi Sykes recommended me," she said.

Activist Stephen Hagan, the editor of the National Indigenous Times newspaper, said Dr Sykes had contributed much to indigenous advancement. "Australia could well do with a Bobbi Sykes this minute -- we don't have those charismatic advocates for indigenous people," he said.

Roberta Sykes Indigenous Education Foundation chairman Peter Waters said the organisation was a testament to her drive.

Dr Sykes leaves a son, Russel, and a daughter, Naomi.