Gary Foley (b. 1950) is a Gumbainggir activist, actor, historian, curator and academic. Born in Grafton, Foley moved to Sydney at the age of seventeen to become an apprentice draughtsman. After being attacked by the police in Redfern, he read the autobiography of African-American activist Malcom X and developed into an Indigenous rights activist. He helped to set up Redfern's Aboriginal Legal Service and the Aboriginal Medical Service in Sydney and Melbourne. In 1971 he was a key organiser of demonstrations against the Springbok tour; the following year he was prominent at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. An advocate of Indigenous creative culture, he toured China in 1974 as part of an Aboriginal delegation and in 1978 took Aboriginal films to the Cannes film festival and around Europe. In 1979 he set up the first Aboriginal Information Centre in London. The first Indigenous Director of the Aboriginal Arts Board (1984–1987), he was active in the Bicentenary protests of 1988, and was a consultant to the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. Foley's acting career began in 1972 when he co-wrote the first Aboriginal stage production Basically Black, after which he appeared in a range of feature films and television series including Phil Noyce's first feature film, Backroads (1977). He also participated in street theatre and appeared as a guest singer with The Clash on their Australian tour in 1982. Foley has written extensively on Indigenous political movements and in 1994 created the Koori History Website, an intensive history archive and education resource. In 2002 Foley completed a first-class honours degree in history at the University of Melbourne, while working as Senior Curator for Southeastern Australia at Museum Victoria. He completed at PhD in History at the University of Melbourne in 2012 and is a professor in the Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit at Victoria University. He presented the story of his life in the stage show Foley at the Melbourne Festival in 2011 and the Sydney Festival in 2012.
