Marcia Langton

Marcia Lynne Langton (born 31 October 1951) is an Aboriginal Australian writer and academic.

she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Langton is known for her activism in the Indigenous rights arena.

Marcia Langton was born on 31 October 1951 to Kathleen (née Waddy) and grew up in south-central Queensland and Brisbane as a descendant of the Yiman and Bidjara heritage, both groups being Aboriginal Australian peoples.

Her father had no presence in her life.

Her mother married Scots-born, ex-Korean War veteran Douglas Langton when Marcia was a year old.

Marcia was close to her maternal grandmother Ruby and her sister Teresa.

She and her mother moved often, without secure housing or employment, and she attended nine primary schools.

She attended Aspley State High School from 1964 to 1968, where she was a prefect and good student, but after objecting to racism in a school text, she was expelled.

She was taken to her first political meeting by Oodgeroo Noonuccal at the age of 16, so by the time she enrolled for a law/arts degree at the University of Queensland in 1969, she had already become an activist.

She advocated for Indigenous land rights and against racism.

She spent one year at the university, during which time she got pregnant with her son.

After hearing that Brisbane police were clamping down on Indigenous activists (at the beginning of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's premiership ), she left the country aged 18, with her son.

For five years she travelled and worked, from New Guinea to Japan, across Asia to Switzerland and North America.

During the early 1970s, Langton was one of three leaders of the Communist League, a group founded by Queensland doctor John McCarthy, Peter Robb and others in 1972, which merged into the Socialist Workers Party around 1976.

She has never been a member of the Communist Party of Australia.

After her return (in early 1975 ) she moved to Sydney, perceiving it as less racist than Brisbane.

While in Japan, where she lived for six months, and Asia, she found "racial invisibility" for the first time; she was not perceived as different because she was black.

In Japan, Langton learnt about Buddhism, and later became a self-described "lazy Buddhist".

Wiradjuri artist Brook Andrew painted Langton in a Buddhist pose.

On her travels she met US servicemen who had served in the Vietnam War, and became acquainted with Afro American culture and the Black Power movement.

After flying to New York City, she was kidnapped by people traffickers, but escaped.

In Sydney, Langton worked as nutrition co-ordinator at the Aboriginal Medical Service, and also worked with Fred Hollows in optical health.

In 1976, Langton, Bobbi Sykes, Sue Chilly (also spelt Chilli), and Naomi Mayers formed the Black Women's Action (BWA) group, which later evolved into the Roberta Sykes Foundation.

After moving to Canberra in 1977, she studied anthropology at the Australian National University, working part-time, and graduated in 1984.

In 1988 she moved to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and worked as senior anthropologist for the Central Land Council for six years, before being made head of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which she undertook for 15 months over 1989 to 1990.

After this, she wrote Too Much Sorry Business, in which she connected the high number of Aboriginal men who died in police or prison custody Northern Territory to Indigenous mortality rates, and to alcohol and other substance abuse.

Langton was then appointed assistant head of the Division of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs in Queensland (under the government of Wayne Goss ), but was forced to resign 15 months later.

She also worked for the Australian Film Commission, Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, and, in the early 1990s, the Cape York Land Council, where she met lawyer Noel Pearson.

In 1992, Langton was appointed chair of AIATSIS in Canberra.

In 1995, Langton moved full-time into university research and teaching.

She spent five years as Ranger Professor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) in Darwin before moving to Melbourne.

In 2000 she was appointed Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, then in the arts faculty.

In 2005 she completed a PhD in geography at Macquarie University.

In Canberra, Langton worked for the Australian Law Reform Commission in its work on recognising customary law.

She became a history research officer at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now AIATSIS).

Her 2005 PhD thesis in geography at Macquarie University applies phenomenological theory to the study of Aboriginal peoples of the eastern Cape York Peninsula.

In 2006, she moved to the university's faculty of medicine, to work with Indigenous academic and social health activist Ian Anderson; the Indigenous Studies Centre also moved to this faculty.

In 2012 she became the patron of the Indigenous Reading Project, a charitable organisation that uses digital technology to improve the reading ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

where in 2016, she became distinguished professor, and in 2017, associate provost.