Ruby Hunter

Hunter was the author of Butcher paper, texta, black board and chalk, a children's song-book which features Aboriginal songs about land, health and life. Many of the songs were written through song writing and music workshops held by Hunter and Roach with children across Cape York in Queensland.

In 2005, Hunter was invited by Deborah Conway to take part in the Broad Festival project, with three other Australian female artists, where they performed their own and each other's songs.[8] With Hunter and Conway were Sara Storer, Katie Noonan and Clare Bowditch.[9]

As a child, Hunter lived with her brothers, Wally, Jeffrey and Robert, and sister Iris, with their grandmother and grandfather at the Aboriginal reserve at Point McLeay (later called Raukkan) on Lake Alexandrina in the Coorong region of South Australia. One day, Wally was taken off the street by government officials, and then the men took the rest of the children from their home, under the pretext that they were being taken to the circus. Thereafter Ruby lived in institutions and foster care, as one of the Stolen Generations, before drifting to Adelaide, staying for a spell at the Salvation Army's "People's Palace",[10] where she met Roach. They later had two sons and fostered three children.[2][11]

Hunter died of a heart attack on 17 February 2010, aged 54.[12] Her partner Archie Roach established "Ruby's Foundation" to help continue her legacy. The foundation is dedicated to creating opportunities for Aboriginal people through the promotion, celebration and support of Aboriginal arts and culture.[13][14]