Burnum Burnum
Burnum Burnum (10 January 1936 – 17 August 1997) was an Aboriginal Australian sportsman, activist, actor, and author. He was a Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man at Wallaga Lake in southern New South Wales. He was originally christened Harry Penrith but in 1976, he changed his name to Burnum Burnum ("Great Warrior") after his grandfather both to honor him and acknowledge his Aboriginal identity. Early life Burnum Burnum was one of the Stolen Generations, taken from his parents when he was barely three months old. Featured on Late Night Live with Phillip Adams in 1999, the story of his early years graphically illustrates the brutality of the assimilation policy in the middle decades of the 20th century. He was raised as an orphan and as a white person, given the name Harry Penrith, and was taught that white was good and black bad. He spent many years in children's homes run by the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, most notably Kinchela Boys Home at Kempsey where he was abused; for example, being beaten with a cattle whip for accidentally breaking a window with a cricket ball and being forced to say "Look at me and you will see that I am