The late Lisa Marie Bellear, a Goernpil woman of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island) was busily attending to NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) week celebrations before she died in her sleep on July 6, at the age of 45. The coroner’s report stated the cause of death as an unusually enlarged heart.
Bellear was a stalwart Aboriginal activist, human rights activist, poet, photographer, community radio broadcaster, and PhD student. The breadth and diversity of her work, mirrored the “larger than life-ness” of this woman who participated in so many disparate communities and activities, all at once – from National Sorry Day Celebrations to being the Deputy Chair of the 1995 International Feminist Bookfair. She was the Victorian Executive Representative of the Black Women’s Action in Education Foundation (BWAEF), founded by acclaimed author and Australia’s highest humanitarian award recipient, Dr. Roberta Sykes. Bellear had visited many universities and performed her poetry in tours to universities and conferences in Europe and across North America. In the US, she was particularly involved with the Native American and African-American student bodies. In academic and literary circles, she is probably best known for her first collection of poetry, Dreaming In Urban Areas, published by the University of Queensland Press in 1996.
