NAIDOC Week is almost here — and this year is a big one. The 50th.

Most people know NAIDOC Week as a time of celebration. Flags flying, art, dancing, community events, kids learning culture at school. And it absolutely is all of that. But the story of how it began? That's something every Australian should know.

Because NAIDOC didn't start as a party. It started as a protest.

Back in 1938, on the 150th anniversary of British colonisation, Aboriginal leaders organised what they called the Day of Mourning. While the rest of the country celebrated 150 years of settlement, First Nations people gathered to mark 150 years of loss, dispossession and being treated as outsiders in their own land.

Behind it were extraordinary figures — William Cooper, Douglas Nicholls, William Ferguson, Jack Patten and Margaret Tucker — names that deserve to be far better known than they are. They stood up at a time when standing up could cost you everything. Earlier groups had faced police harassment so severe that one organisation was forced to abandon its work entirely in 1927.

But they kept going. That's the thread that runs through this whole story — people who simply refused to be silenced.

Over the decades, that Day of Mourning grew. In 1974, the committee running it was made up entirely of Aboriginal members for the first time. The following year, in 1975, it was expanded from a single day into a full week, held in the first week of July.

Later, the name was changed to recognise Torres Strait Islander people and culture too — and NADOC became NAIDOC. That acronym, once the name of a committee, is now the name of the whole week.

And here's the milestone. 2026 marks 50 years of NAIDOC Week — and the theme this year is "50 Years of Deadly."

It's both a celebration and a declaration — a tribute to the Elders who stood firm, the organisers who made space, the artists who turned resistance into expression, and the communities who keep showing up, year after year. Fifty years of survival, strength, culture and pride — built not by chance, but by generations who refused to give up.

This year's NAIDOC Week runs from Sunday 5 July to Sunday 12 July. We'll be sharing stories, history and local celebrations all the way through — so keep an eye on this page.

From a Day of Mourning to fifty years of deadly. What a journey. And it's far from over.

(The 2026 National NAIDOC Poster incorporating the Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag (licensed by the Torres Strait Island Council).