When Jean Horner and her husband Jack went to the first public meeting of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship in April 1957, they simply wanted to find out if Aboriginal people were being discriminated against in their own country.
The meeting did far more than provide Jean and Jack with clear evidence of such discrimination – it was in fact to change their lives. For Jean it meant a long association with the campaign for Aboriginal justice in Australia and she became the hard-working colleague of many emerging Indigenous activists including Faith Bandler, Pearl Gibbs and Dulcie Flower. She worked tirelessly for the campaigns that led to the successful 1967 Referendum. 
But too often Jean is remembered simply for the support she gave her husband in the work he did for the same cause. Faith Bandler, being interviewed for an oral history project for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, spoke of Jean and Jack together as ‘cornerstones’ in the movement for Aboriginal advancement. But important as Jack and Jean were as a team, and acknowledging that Jack could not have achieved what he did without his wife’s support, Jean Horner still deserves her own special recognition.
Jean made a unique and separate contribution to the successful outcome of the 1967 Referendum. In her quiet, unassuming way she provided much of the back-room support for many people that was so fundamentally necessary. She was always available as a chauffeur for delegates coming to Sydney for meetings; she provided beds and meals in her own home for visitors from out of town; she lent moral support and a helping hand to those who sought her counsel; she helped in fundraising events to finance essential travel for delegates and speakers; she found venues for meetings and joined in the campaigns for equal pay for equal work and better housing for Aboriginal people.
As well as all this effort behind the scenes, Jean took on an important public role. For nearly ten years she took on the job of Treasurer, first for the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship and later for the Federal Council for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. As Dulcie Flower said recently, “Jean did a marvellous job for both groups. There was only ever one nomination for Treasurer at AGMs and that was for Jean Horner, unopposed”. Jean’s punctilious account keeping and constant efforts to save money and raise funds ensured that the AAF and FCAATSI meetings were held every year and that delegates could attend them from far and wide.
When Jean attended the ceremony marking the 30 th Anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, she sat on the platform with many of her old colleagues from those amazing years. Though sadly Pearl Gibbs was not there, Faith Bandler, Dulcie Flower, Joyce Clague and Evelyn Scott, to name just a few, were present to mark the occasion with her. The wonderful photograph of the participants at the ceremony is eloquent testimony to all those women, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who together achieved so much in the long hard struggle for Aboriginal advancement
Pamela Harris
February 2007
Australian Women's History Forum 