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Explore powerful stories at the intersection of history, culture, and music—from Aboriginal cricket pioneers and war heroes to legendary albums by Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Gurrumul. This blog dives deep into First Nations resilience, iconic protest music, and untold truths that shaped Australia and the world. Engaging, thoughtful, and unapologetically real—where powerful voices from the past meet today's social conversation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this page contains images and names of deceased persons.
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Today is International Mother Language Day and what better way to celebrate and promote linguistic and cultural diversity...
Known affectionately as the “Queen of the Bandrarl Ngadu (Fitzroy River) Delta,” Kankawa Nagarra stands as one of the most spiritually resonant voices in Australian music. A Walmatjarri, Gooniyandi and Bunuba Elder from the Kimberley, Nagarra is not an artist shaped by industry ambition or commercial expectation. She is, first and foremost, a custodian of culture — a singer whose music carries Country, memory, and lived experience with rare authority. Kankawa Nagarra’s life s
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 212 min read
The Stolen Generations: The effects did not end when the policies did.
In the quiet spaces between official records and family memory lies one of the most confronting truths of Australia’s modern history. Between 1910 and the 1970s, it is estimated that as many as one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families under formal government policies of assimilation. These children would later become known as the Stolen Generations — though the term itself barely captures the scale, duration, and hu
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 112 min read
On This Day, 4 February 1939: The Cummeragunja Walk-Off.
On 4 February 1939, a quiet but revolutionary act unfolded on the banks of the Murray River. About 200 Aboriginal men, women and children walked off Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station, near Moama in southern New South Wales, in what became one of the first mass Indigenous strikes in Australian history. This was no spontaneous protest. It was a carefully considered act of resistance against years of neglect, abuse and control imposed by the NSW Aborigines Protection Board, the go
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 42 min read
January 26: A Date That Still Divides a Nation.
Each year, January 26 arrives carrying two very different meanings. For some Australians, it marks the foundation of the modern nation — the day the First Fleet raised the British flag at Sydney Cove in 1788. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, however, it represents the beginning of dispossession, violence, and the systematic disruption of cultures that had thrived on this continent for tens of thousands of years. This is why the date is widely referred t
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 261 min read
Colonisation: A Global Story of Displacement and Survival.
Colonisation is often taught as a chapter of expansion and exploration. For Indigenous peoples, it is remembered as a profound rupture — one that reshaped lands, laws, cultures, and lives across continents. In Australia, British colonisation from 1788 was built on the false premise of terra nullius, the claim that the land belonged to no one. This legal fiction ignored the existence of hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations, each with their own laws, langua
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 212 min read
Evonne Goolagong Cawley: A Champion with Grace.
Some sporting legends dominate with power. Evonne Goolagong Cawley did it with grace. Born in 1951 and raised in the small town of Barellan, NSW, Evonne grew up at a time when life for Aboriginal families was shaped by strict government control and constant uncertainty. This was the Stolen Generations era — when many Aboriginal children were taken from their families, and opportunity was not something that came easily. As a young girl, Evonne spent hours hitting a tennis ball
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 191 min read
Plastic began as a “miracle.” Now, it’s one of our greatest environmental challenges.
Plastic’s story began with good intentions. In 1907, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created Bakelite, the world’s first fully synthetic plastic—hailed as a miracle material that could replace scarce natural resources like ivory and tortoiseshell. By the mid-20th century, plastics were mass-produced worldwide, woven into everything from packaging to medicine, transport, and electronics. Cheap, durable and versatile, plastic spread faster than any other material in huma
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 3, 20252 min read
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia.
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia—an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural archive maintained not on paper, but in memory, voice, and lived practice. For tens of thousands of years, long before written language was introduced to the continent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples preserved vast bodies of knowledge through spoken word, song, dance, story, ceremony, art, and Country itself. These traditions are not simply stories;
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 26, 20252 min read
Samson and Delilah – A Haunting Masterpiece of Silence and Survival.
Warrick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah (2009) is an unflinching poem of isolation, love, and resilience. Told with sparse dialogue and extraordinary visual power, it captures the raw, often devastating reality of life for two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote Central Australian community. It’s a story that refuses sentimentality, instead revealing beauty through endurance and quiet connection. The film follows Samson (Rowan McNamara), a volatile young man numbed by boredom and
Groote Broadcasting
Oct 29, 20252 min read
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