The Royal Historical Society of Victoria welcomes the celebrations of NAIDOC week 2-9 July. The theme for this year is ‘For our Elders’ which celebrates the importance of Elders to the strength of families and communities across the generations. There is a continuity of Elder wisdom and knowledge in Aboriginal society that has stretched across 2000 generations.
All of us should pay heed to this respect shown by Aboriginal people to Elders. We should recognise the importance of elders in our own lives and our own families. The community history movement, for better or worse, is a movement of older Australians who in their own way collect and retell the stories of their communities.
NAIDOC week is a time to further the education of all Australians about our Indigenous history, especially this year as Australians edge closer to a decision on the First Nations Voice to Parliament. The RHSV is doing this in a small way by its annual Billibellary Indigenous History lecture, its new approach to cataloguing to find and recognise material Indigenous Australian in our collections, and articles on Aboriginal history published in the Victorian Historical Journal.
Richard Broome AM
President
239 A'Beckett Street Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 
03 9326 9288 
office@historyvictoria.org.au 
Office & Library: Weekdays 9am-5pm
