Family photographs add so much to Aboriginal autobiography. Aboriginal people will scan them to see who they know and what the buildings, clothes, and area looked like then. Photographs are an open invitation to connect with your people, no matter where they are from.

In Auntie Rita: The classic memoir of an Aboriginal woman’s love and determination, first published in 1994, Auntie Rita (1921–96), a Bidjara woman, and her daughter Jackie Huggins, a Bidjara/Birri Gubba Juru woman, have produced a blended narrative and autobiography that tells of Auntie Rita’s early years living under the Queensland government assimilation polices and her adult life as a wife, widow, and single parent. Jackie – author, historian, academic – is a formidable woman. Together they share a strong and caring story interwoven with the injustices of living under government policies. They tell of the oppressed black people working with white supporters to create opportunities and address inequality for those in Brisbane.