In 1964, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, then publishing as Kath Walker, released We Are Going. It was the first book of poetry by an Aboriginal Australian author. The collection spoke directly of dispossession, cultural survival, land, protest, and the continuing presence of Indigenous people in a settler nation.

We Are Going transformed Australian poetry by insisting that Aboriginal experience was not a subject to be spoken about but a voice speaking for itself. Oodgeroo's plain, public, memorable poems influenced later First Nations poets and activists linking lyric witness with political struggle.