1944 - present

Bondi Junction played a significant role in the struggle for Aboriginal rights in the 1970s. Among the activists who established a base in the eastern suburbs to escape intense police scrutiny in Redfern was Kaye Williams, wife of the first Aboriginal judge, Bob Bellear.

The pair met in 1966 and married after a whirlwind romance. Kaye moved to Sydney from her hometown of Ballarat and was living in Bondi when she met her future husband. Kaye said they were hard times for a white woman to be married to an Aboriginal man and the couple experienced a lot of racism.

After they married, the pair became involved in the Redfern community, just as it was becoming the centre of Aboriginal activism over social justice issues including displacement, poor housing, health and police victimisation. Kaye Bellear had a job working as a nurse at Rachael Foster Hospital in Redfern. When a group of Aboriginal men and women were arrested for trespassing in empty houses owned by absentee landlords, the Redfern Aboriginal Legal Service persuaded the court to discharge the men into the care of three priests at Redfern Presbytery and Kaye. The priests and the Bellears set up accommodation in the church hall for the group of 15. The number soon rose to about 50 homeless people.

The event inspired the couple to help establish the Aboriginal Housing Company in 1972. It campaigned to prevent landlords in Redfern evicting Aboriginal tenants and successfully lobbied the Whitlam government to make a grant to purchase the first four houses on The Block.

That year, after a confrontation between Redfern residents and police at the Clifton Hotel in Redfern, Bob and Kaye made the decision that he would go to university and become a lawyer. He went on to become Australia's first Aboriginal judge.

The racism the couple continued to experience extended to hotels, some of which refused to serve Aboriginal people. A photograph of the couple taken at that time shows Kaye drinking a beer just inside the door of the Clifton Hotel in Redfern while her husband drank some milk on the other side of the door, outside the hotel.

Bob Bellear died in 2005, but Kaye continues to advocate for the indigenous rights.

Courtesy the Gujaga Foundation and Fairfax Media.