Honouring Nancy Barnes, nee Brumbie (1927–2012), South Australia’s first qualified Aboriginal Kindergarten Director

Abstract

To date, the work of Aboriginal early childhood educators in the mid-twentieth century has not been widely acknowledged. Nancy Barnes, nee Brumbie (1927–2012), exemplifies the strength and tenacity of Aboriginal Australians who had to negotiate their lives and work in white institutions and a society which denied them fundamental human rights. Nancy graduated from the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College in December 1956 as the first qualified Aboriginal kindergarten director in South Australia. Following on, she was the foundation director of Ida Standley Preschool in Alice Springs (1959–1962) then the first ‘regional director’ in the Kindergarten Union of South Australia. Based on traditional archival research and analysis of public documents and Barnes’ autobiography, the article begins with her childhood and youth as a domestic servant and then explores her career, political activism, experiences of racism and lifelong commitment to addressing inequalities between Aboriginal and white Australians through education.