Gary Foley

Gary Edward Foley (born 1950) is an Aboriginal Australian activist of the Gumbaynggirr people, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s. He also co-wrote and acted in the first Indigenous Australian stage production, Basically Black. Foley is Professor, Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit, at Victoria University. Early years Gary Edward Foley was born in 1950 in Grafton, New South Wales, of Gumbaynggirr descent, and spent much of his childhood in Nambucca Heads. He was expelled from school at the age of 15 and arrived in Redfern in aged 17 in around 1967. He worked as an apprentice draughtsman.